Friday, September 25, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
IK A&M students discover selves in ruins at dig site
lint: they haveor-i: By Mary-Lynne Rice
Staff Writer
sniper. OurlxLBL] on g t j ie Mi m t> re s River in
nil we get one w southwestern New 1 Mexico, a prehis-
hat woulditCOSl’i tone pueblo ruin abandoned in 1150
at’s all, but stopd is gradually being uncovered and
Id mean: notjuj®aerstood.
Id-wideexposiit® Every summer for the past 10
-.v-oU, TKitlcLJyears, Texas A&M students have
ersity. inisist- ' ’ L • r , , . ,
, . come to the site fear archeological
lampionship i field school) and in learning a g out
»u saw I - ull Met| archeology and the Mimbres Indi-
^ what I’mtallti:.;! ans, the students also have learned
ab< >ut themselves.
r et to immortalsH" 11 taught me a whole new opin-
I w hen Mr \ ion of archeology and oflife,” junior
‘tethropology major Rob Barros
i i' ugui; jjyj ..j t hink it was the best experi
ence I’ve ever had.”
B What began as an invitation to in
spect some archeological materials
developed into an extensive 10-year
project.
■ “In the beginning, we were a little
naive about what we wanted to do,’
he was en
wanted to.Tha:j
fish over in the :J
1 out likeclociv j
out of mechanic
aappens to have:
* V >iK .|] U S i Hy s Dr. Harry Shafer, A&M profes-
ih v u( as 0 p an thropology and director of
■"111led loiut.. jjje Mimbres field-school project.
ink of it: A&M J
:>wed reputatic M “But now, after 10 years, we’ve
becomes an unrSnassed so much knowledge that
^ft’re at the point where it’s time to
stop that and start writing,” he says.
■ “We’ve got to have some dme to
ilprocess the informadon because the
amount of material we’ve brought in
jeach season is considerable,” he says.
H° uses > tools and skeletons have
. i< * uc j « en recovered as we n as the “hall-
" 111 tnark" of the Mimbres culture, de-
Mascotfoltjjieci painted pottery, he says,
gie Class of NirriH “It's a reference library of arche-
itv Eight! iological materials and it takes time to
ts Aggie SNIPE! Iprocess all that stuff — to see that ev-
C )uta t u 1 ” Hything gets cataloged and properly
I inventoried,” he says.
a graduatem'Wi “We want to try to reconstruct
(ration. P 351 wa y s an d learn as much
about the people as we can,” he says.
“Once we begin to see a pattern of
ange through time, we will try to
understand and explain why those
' anges are taking place.”
perienced people always have to be
out there.”
But experience is quickly gained,
he says.
“In three or four weeks, all of
them are very good at what tasks
have to be done,” he says.
Students serve three-day job rota-
dons, he says, learning field excava
tion techniques, cataloging and labo
ratory procedures and helping to
cook meals and clean up the camp
and kitchen area.
“Everybody
d everybody
Photo by Samuel Myers
Dr. Harry Shafer, director of the Mimbres Indian field-school pro
ject, examines one of the pots reclaimed from the site this summer
in New Mexico. The pottery is famous for its ornate designs.
? Ever Lovin'!
“r Livin’!
as Aggie OffetK
as Aggie Defense
j! The Mimbres project has been
Kinded by National Geographic,
Karthwatch and contributing volun
teers interested in the excavation,
ly disturbed ttif ifShafer says. He estimates the project
loyers may ask
ncd.
evented
hen the student 1
o cares about ttel
has received about $80,000 in
grants.
Each student who attends the
field school pays six hours of tuition
and a $400 lab fee that covers food
and transportation costs.
There are no prerequisites for
joining the field school — the stu
dent doesn’t have to be an anthro
pology major or have taken any an
thropology courses.
But at the end of the six-week
course, each student has learned
proper field excavation techniques,
Shafer says.
“It’s designed to take them from
the very beginning,” he says. “We
work them in very quickly. From day
one, we have them participating in
field work.”
Each day in the field begins with a
6:30 a.m. wake-up call, work lasts
from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and lec
tures are given in the evening, he
says.
“With that kind of exposure, it
doesn’t take people long to catch on
to what the basic techniques are,” he
says.
Students ease into the program
slowly, so they can learn basic proce
dures, Shafer says. But from that
point, he says, the students are fully
involved in the excavation, working
in groups of five or six and super
vised by either Shafer, a graduate
student or an assistant instructor.
Constant supervision and
guidance is necessary to protect the
artifacts from accidental damage,
Shafer says.
“Since archeology is such a fragile
resource, in order to study it you
have to destroy it,” he says. “If
you’re not aware of what the signifi
cance of something is, you’re liable
to dig through it and not even re
cord it.
“You might have dug through
something nighly significant that
helps you fill in the pieces to make
sense of a much broader area, so ex-
has a responsibility
and everybody has to carry a certain
weight,” Shafer says. “So when they
come home, they realize that it
wasn’t just going out and having fun
at the field school and having some
one wait on you all the time.”
For many of the students, the
field school requires them to take
more responsibility for themselves
than they are accustomed to.
Doing laundry and cleaning up
after themselves is sometimes as
much of a learning experience as the
field work, Shafer says.
He describes the field (school ex
perience as a maturing process.
“It’s structured in such a way that
they start where they feel comfort
able and we feel comfortable assign
ing them certain responsibilities,” he
says.
“The responsibility load is in
creased through the season at the
pace at which that particular person
was developing,” he says.
“That’s one of the true tests of the
field school — to see who’s going to
be a natural leader, who can take re
sponsibility and handle the group ef
fectively, and who are always going
to have some leadership provided
for them,” Shafer says.
At the field school, some students
discovere that archeology isn’t what
they expect, Shafer says. For some,
the physical demands of field work
are too intense. Others find they
simply don’t enjoy the excavation
process. But in 10 years, no student
ever left the field school early, he
says.
“It is a weeding-out process,” he
says. “Some of them get out there
and realize that ‘This is not what I
want to do at all.’ Others are just at
tracted to it — they really enjoy that
aspect of it. They’re very responsible
and they develop into really good
leaders.
“Those are the people we’re
looking for in terms of encouraging
them to go on in the profession.”
Shafer believes the impression he
and his assistants make on the stu
dents greatly affects what they learn
from the field school.
“It has a lot to do with the tone,”
he says. “If you set a professional
tone and let the students know that
you’re serious about what you’re
doing, but you’re not a fuddy-duddy
— you do have a sense of humor
about it — there are some light mo
ments, yes. But in terms of the work
itself, you’ve got to be out there
doing it yourself.
“If you sit back and order some
body to do something and if you sit
back and watch them, their morale is
going to be destroyed.”
Shafer is always in the field, work
ing early in the morning and late at
night. His example shows the stu
dents what is expected of them, he
says.
“A lot of it has to do with peer
opinion,” he says. “They don’t want
to be seen as someone slacking off,
so they’ll go do their task. In the end,
they’ll see the importance of being a
team member — if one person slacks
off, someone else is going to have to
pick up the slack.”
Junior anthropology major Phil
Harrison says there is more than
academics in what field school
taught him.
“I learned more than just how to
excavate a site,” he says. “I also
learned a lot about myself and other
people. It was a cumulative learning
experience — not just about archeol
ogy itself or the Mimbres Indians,
but a lot about different aspects of li
fe.”
Shafer says his goal as a teacher is
to provide opportunities and learn
ing experiences, and that his reward
is watching students mature and
benefit from his guidance.
“It’s not just the discoveries that
make it exciting," he says. “That,
too, is exciting, but what makes it
more exciting for me is to see the
transformation in these students
who are for the first time in their
lives discovering the outdoors, dis
covering the lessons that can be
learned from field work and from
being a team member, learning to
handle responsibility. We give them
responsibility and see them grow up.
“Even though it’s only six weeks,
you can see an enormous change in
people. And over and over through
the years, that has been the real re
ward.”
Correction
An article and accompanying
headline published in Tuesday’s
Battalion incorrectly reported
that the Texas A&M Student
Counseling Service had been dis
continued.
The Student Counseling Serv
ice provides academic and per
sonal counseling, both emergency
and non-emergency, every week
day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Student Counseling Serv
ice’s after-hours and weekend
emergency services were disconti
nued m 1986 when the A.P. Beu-
tal Health Center’s 24-hour and
weekend medical services were
closed.
The health center’s 24-hour
and weekend services were re
stored this semester and the Uni
versity is considering reimple
menting the 24-hour emergency
and weekend counseling service
as well. But any student in a med
ical or psychological crisis after
hours or on weekends still can re
ceive care at the health center.
It also was reported in the arti
cle that the Student Senate passed
a resolution urging the University
to reopen the after-hours and
weekend counseling service. The
Graduate Student Council, not
the Student Senate, passed the
resolution.
Also, Wade Birch, director of
counseling and testing at the Stu
dent Counseling Service, incor
rectly was identified as the direc
tor of student services.
miors and senior 1 1
intact. AIDS
ey need jobs morrl
e to be outcasts
DS is a definite
treat.
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bail team is ui
on the field
►ologize if I have
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Breathdj
MYPM‘1
I7WCW^ :
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