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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1998)
le Battalion Page 3 • Tuesday, October 13, 1998 TheB] Aggielife archaeological awareness b a c k t i m e Story by Stephen Wells Photos courtesy of Texas A&M Archaeological Department of Stuifc :es wit nt Coni: nter. Oil 64for(!e: jianAssis ral mee" Ruddet Busan H5 Oontaci t nforma Far Left and Above: Divers with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology are work ing around the brushwood dunnage that lay in the bottom of the hold from a Bronze Age Shipwreck at Cape Gelidonya. Above: Divers with INA un cover pottery from the Bronze Age Shipwreck at Cape Gelidonya. Far Right: The ship’s an chor of Canaanite or Cypriot type was found nearly a hun dred meters from the main area of the wrepk. .... Archaeology month promotes holistic approach v to T lkas A&M students may look back on their childhoods and remember searching for ar rowheads in their backyards. Digging in the mud, they may have chanced upon a triangular object. It did not matter whether or not it was a real artifact — it could have just been a stale piece of packing foam. Nevertheless, the magic of discovery was there. Intent on recapturing some of this magic for young and old alike, the Texas Historical Commission has declared Oc tober to be Texas Archaeology Aware ness Month. Doris Howard, a member of the Texas Historical Commission, said the month of October was chosen because it coincided with the beginning of the school year, making it easier to involve children. “Archeology Awareness Month is for the education of the public, but we con centrate on the school kids,” Howard said. “We try to reach all of the popula tion but we’ve found that its much eas ier to reach the school kids. ” Dr. Alston Thoms, director for the Center for Ecological Archaeology and a senior lecturer in anthropology, said ar chaeology is a discipline used to under stand the past. Instead of simply reading history books, archaeologists hold pieces of his tory in their hands every day. “You can look at archaeology as the study of lives and past life ways,” Thoms said. “You can see how people from thousands of years ago coped with the same problems we face today, such as where to find their next meal or how to find shelter.” Rather than just a string of facts, Thoms said a student of archaeology should take a holistic approach to history. “We look at the processes of life and the everyday processes of past cultures,” Thoms said. “Instead of just collecting and categorizing tools, we look at how people cooked and how they moved about. We look at what they were able to accomplish using the raw materials at hand.” Richard Huey, curator of education for the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural His tory, said archaeology is important be cause it gives people a frame of reference for their lives. “Archeology, to a great extent, helps us to understand where we came from,” Huey said. “By looking at archeological evidence, we can tell what has come be fore us and how we’ve improved. It also gives us an anchor point for our lives, something we can look at and see where we are today compared with where we were years ago.” Archeology is not at all like an Indi ana Jones movie. Bullwhips and antique ‘'The wisest thing to do in life, is to give some thing an opportunity before you make a judgment about it” — Richard Huey Curator of education for the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History pistols are seldom used as tools on a dig. However, Harrison Ford was correct when he said archaeology is a mental exercise more than anything else. “What did Texas look like before the Europeans came?” Thoms said. “Ar chaeology can give you an answer to that, or it can give at least as good an an swer as anything else.” In celebration of Archaeology Aware ness Month, the Brazos Valley Museum will present the exhibit, “Ghosts of the Deep,” on Oct. 17. The exhibit will feature several hands-on displays that will teach muse um-goers how to do everything from digging for clues in the sand to locating a sunken ship with a magnetometer, an instrument used to measure the intensi ty and direction of magnetic fields. For students who may be hesitant to go because of the general perception that museum a are boring, stuffy places, Huey has some advice. “The wisest thing to do, in every as pect of life, is to give something an op portunity before you make a judgment about it,” Huey said. “A lot of people think of museums as the sort of place they would not go to see something ex citing, but museums have changed a lot. Give it a chance and then make your opinion.” Texas A&M students who have the desire to study archaeology hands-on have an excellent array of sources and possibilities to choose from. A&M archaeological digs have tak en place on four continents and in over 20 countries. Texas A&M undergraduates have par ticipated in digs as far away as Egypt and Israel and as close as a Civil War prison camp near Tyler. In addition, there are many undergrad uate courses in the anthropology depart ment dealing with archaeological studies. Texas A&M also possesses a unique graduate program. The Nautical Archaeology program at Texas A&M is one of only two in the na tion — and only three in the world — of fering professional degrees in nautical archaeology, the study of shipwrecks. Students familiar with documentaries about the “Titanic” have seen the result of nautical archaeology. Contrary to any “Treasure Hunters” special on TBS, however, nautical ar chaeology is not a hunt for riches. Dr. Frederick Hocker, an associate professor for the nautical archeology program, said the history behind a gold piece is worth much more than the ma terial itself. “A treasure might be something you’d find at a site, but we concentrate on the history of seafaring,” Hocker said. see Archaeology on Page 6. enlighten • entertain • inspire lio EBER .ne:^ 33. snot if? a.n® - -m net 3St0S An Offer That’s More Than Just Talk. Open a Norwest® Free Checking account or any other Norwest checking account by November 30th, 1998 and we’ll give you 15 free minutes of long distance phone calls. 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