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
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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
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