Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2010 - (Page 30)

tHi 30 imagine The assignment was simple: Mark one-yard divisions running perpendicular to the Alpha Delta Pi sorority house, then march slowly across the lawn, chins glued to chests, chanting, “Stop. Move!” every ﬁve to ten seconds. Each student stood at arm’s distance from the next, and together we stepped like an orderly marching band gearing up to play the school’s ﬁght song. Our white nitrile exam gloves even suggested the part. But this was no band rally or Freshman Week icebreaker. It was a meeting of my ﬁeld methods course, and today’s lesson was Survey. ancient cultures, but also the history of present-day cultures. In addition to archaeology-specific courses, USC’s diverse program provides multiple perspectives through which to understand history and prehistory. In Classical Art and Archaeology class, students analyze museum exhibits and memorize styles of Greek vases; in Archaeology and Society class, we explore readings on Native American property rights and postmodern/postcolonial theory. The former is an art history class; the latter, ethics and history. And the program encompasses much more than just classroom work. Students are strongly encouraged to gain direct experience through participation in research projects. In my work as a research assistant to Professor Lynn Dodd, I helped build a database for the Native American Cultural Landscapes Initiative. This database will link landscape data and ancient site information as a tool for research and preservation. In order to collect rock samples for the database, we had to navigate around Pechanga Indian beliefs in ancestral knowledge and sentient landscape features—such as rocks. Understanding the history and beliefs of a culture is vital when conducting archaeological research, and my experiences in the lab are helping me do just that. Why i became an Archaeology Major by tiffany tsai dig I grew up poring over National Geographic magazines. I favored the ethnographic pieces above “buried treasure” features; I simply loved to learn how people in other cultures lived. And because everything was in first-person, I was the cultural interloper, making new discoveries with every turn of the page. Even before I knew what archaeology was, I wanted to be an archaeologist. Even so, I didn’t consider studying archaeology in college—at first. So limited was my understanding of archaeology that I feared hedging my future prospects on a spectacular tomb find. At the University of Southern California, I declared majors in architectural engineering, math, and creative writing before encountering archaeology in an environmental studies class that was investigating the role of deforestation in the downfall of the Ancient Maya. With a flicker of nostalgia, I recalled my early National Geographic days. And when I learned that USC offers an interdisciplinary major in archaeology where I could study environmental adaptation, linguistics, art history, anthropology, and religion—all components of USC’s archaeology program—I knew I had finally found the right major for me. unearthing the Past Archaeologists examine pieces of the past and put them together in order to understand not only nov/dec 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2010

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2010
Contents
Big Questions
In My Own Words
Inside the Ropes
Get Your Hands Dirty!
The Bone Reader
The Science of Archaeology
A Window to the Past
History and Archaeology in the News
National History Day
Dig This!
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Taking the Leap
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
One Step Ahead
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2010