Starting Over

I would like to thank everyone for their kind words and advice. I know many other qualified people out there are suffering from the news of rejection and a perceived life over.
But with every door that closes another one opens right?

What can I do as an ancient history/classical arch/geology person who suddenly doesn't have a future lined up after graduation on June 12th?

I have already started working on this.

With a glimmer of hope for Boston I began emailing supporting contacts to find out chances for outside funding. I also started to apply for various academic scholarships through Fast Web.

Chances are slim for funding so I started checking on various field opportunities for the summer via the AIA website and Shovelbums. I also started checking on job openings. No solid leads so far, but if I remain persistent, I'm sure something will surface.

Next, I have to contact the 5 schools that rejected me to see why they did, and if they would recommend me applying again next year.

Then I'll start working on a new game plan for grad school next year.

My rough plan for the summer includes getting a job at a local museum or national park and helping with curation or site interpretation. At the same time, I'll volunteer for local field schools to keep me in the field and sane. By the fall I should be auditing Greek and Latin courses to keep me fresh and prepared. I should also pick up German and or French. Then I can reapply to schools and get my applications in early.

Life isn't over. I'm 23 years old and have so much going for me and have so many people in my corner. I'm going to graduate with a degree from Ohio State University and I will get into a good grad school with funding next year.

In response to Brent. A glimmer of hope amidst my fury.

Brent,

Your comment couldn't have come at a better time. I was sitting here forcing myself to translate a little Cicero, but my thoughts kept drifting to a complete sadness that I have failed myself and everyone who believes in me. It's a no from both Ohio State and U Penn. Two rejections in one day is hard to swallow, especially since my professors here at OSU fought so hard to get me in here.

All the rejections have left me bitter. I'm a 3.5 honors student and a sub-par standardized test taker. But I'll be damned if I'm not a GREAT archaeologist/classicist/geologist, as well as an avid museum volunteer, forum organizer, and officer of too many student organizations to count. I care about my school, my professors and I'm enormously passionate about my research.

How is it then that I see the biggest douche-bag idiots, who know nothing about the real world, who only know the shit they have been fed from their undergrad courses--who can't formulate a single thought or opinion for themselves--get in to grad school?? Ah, the numbers game--why should only those who lived a conformed life to get the 4.0 get into grad school? Sure I'm over-generalizing here, but I'm sick of seeing it. I'm sick of hearing my professors complain that they wish their grad students would be more like me. I'm FED UP hearing grad students bitch about a professor making them think outside of the box or outside of their own research. They should grow up and learn a few things. They should appreciate the opportunities they have in front of them.

If you want to know how I REALLY feel, just email me.

Back to Brent's post. What a ray of optimism from my day of stewing pessimism. 45,000 a yr is a lot of money. But you're right, I have been too hung up on the number. My dreams, my education, my livelihood are more important than a price tag and once I have it, no one can take it away from me. A great school out there (BU) wants this Great crazy interdisciplinary archaeologist. Once there, nothing will be able to slow me down. With my work ethic I'll at least have a small hope of funding for the next year.

Brent, your comment of encouragement has helped me realize the opportunity that has been presented to me. Despite five rejections, I need to take my own advice and yours. I would be foolish to write off BU completely.

Does anyone know how much I can get for one of my kidney's??

For now, it's back to the Pro Caelio.

Dino DNA?

As I have mentioned before, there are many things that interest me beyond the focus of Classical Archaeology. Paleontology is one of those things. The T-Rex soft tissue recently discovered from the 70 million yr old Hell Creek Sandstone in Montana completely blows me away. As you will find in these articles, this discovery links dinosaur's to the modern day Ostrich; there is also potential to extract DNA from the soft tissue.

CNN Summary: Soft tissue found in T-rex fossil

The official research article in Science: Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex

An Update for the Readers

In checking my reader audience through site meter, I found this site called Rouge Classicism.

There I found an entry about this site:

I'm starting to get paranoid about announcing new blogs here ... seems every one I announce suddenly goes silent or 'dies' within a few weeks. So, with those risks in mind, I am still going to alert folks to the existence of a blog called Classical Archaeologist, which is the creation of an undergrad majoring in Ancient History and Geology.

First of all, thanks for the link! I can assure you that as long as there are interesting topics to discuss in archaeoloogy, this blog will not go silent for any extended period of time. I am very dedicated to the fields of Classical Archaeology and Geology, and will be for the rest of my life.

On that note, I still have not heard back from Ohio State or U Penn concerning graduate school admission. I also received bad funding news from Boston University after emailing a current grad student there. He said only 7 of 50 Archaeology grad students are funded. To go there I need about 45k/yr--that's tuition and cost of living. So much for that one acceptance....

Keeping the faith...

Senior Thesis In Progress

The daily struggle with the senior honors thesis is the result of my desire to make it absolutely perfect. Needless to say, I'm starting to break through this bad habit. However, after many months of searching through my sources for the "perfect quote" to begin the damn thing, I think I have finally come upon it. I was forced to take another look at Oliver Rakham's "A History of the Countryside", since someone out there decided they wanted to check out the book I have been continuously renewing. In reading page 6, I decided to use this quote:

The historian has to combine the several types of evidence at his disposal. A story based on one kind of evidence is never so complete or secure as the one that is corroborated from some quite different direction. Unfortunately, many historians confine themselves to the written word or, worse still, to the literary word; they are reluctant to put on their boots and to see what the land itself, and the things that grow on it, have to say. -Oliver Rackham

Seeing as I'm writing my thesis on landscape archaeology within the History department, where the reluctance is evident, it seems to fit perfectly.

As far as the rest of the thesis, I am making nice progress. I have completed my own Microsoft Access database that contains entries for all 200 units I rewalked in September. The bulk of my thesis will discuss several hypotheses I made during my fieldwork. I will share those now:

1. Despite the argument of Albert J. Ammerman, and based on experimental evidence by Robert Schon, there may not be a significant need to resurvey units, at least in the short term. The new 2004 data will agree with this assessment--not much has changed in four years.

2. The land cover category, "Weeds", does much to harm correlations between Land Cover/Visibility/Artifact Density because of the walker tendency to check weeds with any sighting of weeds, whether significantly hindering visibility to the unit or not. "Weeds" can imply so many things, making it an insignificant category. There are many versions, including weeds that are tall and light that seem to not hinder visibility. Therefore, it is impossible to say that weeds hinder visibility, thus hindering artifact recovery.

3. Correlations can be drawn between a high visibility and olive groves, low visibility and apricot and almond groves, which in turn produce both high and low artifact densities. Farmer care of certain fields (Olives v. other cultivation) can tell us something about visibility and artifact density.

4. There is a correlation between low visibility and the number of land cover categories checked, particularly in the area of Kenchreai. This area has a low visibility overall, therefore has low artifact density. Five or more land cover categories present is especially inhibiting.

5. Field walker inconsistency is rather minor, based on the 2004 rewalking of 200 units.

More soon...

Beware of the Ides of March

Being that it is March 15th and me being the ancient historian that I am, I thought it would be appropriate to provide some information on March 15, 44 BC.

Last year, National Geographic wrote an article. It's a good scholarly overview in my opinion.

If you are wondering what "Ides" are, let me explain. The Romans didn't count days of the month from 1 through 30, instead they used names on several days--these were markers on which you would count the days backwards from.
The Kalends fell on the 1st of the month, the Nones on the 5th or 7th, and the Ides on the 13th or 15th. But don't take my words for it.

For primary sources by Plutarch, check out The Life of Julius Caesar and The Life of Marcus Brutus.

Early Humans in North America

"An archaeologist [Dr. Al Goodyear]from the University of South Carolina on Wednesday announced radiocarbon tests that dated the first human settlement in North America to 50,000 years ago -- at least 25,000 years before other known human sites on the continent."
--Excerpt taken from this CNN article. November 18, 2004.


In the last blog entry, I referred to this site in South Carolina. My memory served me wrong though as the archaeologists are going off only stone tool fragments and carbonized plant remains, not any bones. I'm glad I was able to track this old article down. In hunting for it, I also found this USC article, which is a much more reliable source where they explain radiocarbon dating methods and they actual dates that were returned.

I find this debate facinating, and I'm glad to see several well-known archaeologists jumping in to question Goodyear's findings:

"He has a very old geologic formation, but I can't agree with his interpretation of those stones being man-made," said Michael Collins of the Texas Archeological Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.

"It poses some real problems trying to explain how you have people (arriving) in Central Asia almost at the same time as people in the Eastern United States," said Theodore Schurr, anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a curator at the school's museum. "You almost have to hope for instantaneous expansion ... We're talking about a very rapid movement of people around the globe."

No matter what, more light has been shed on the possibilities of human arrival and migration. I'm glad to see this has stirred some controversy which will lead to signficant conclusions. We'll see just how well Dr. Goodyear's conclusions hold up at the October 2005 conference.

Stay tuned.

Dialogue on Early Humans

Steve Patrick came across an interesting article this weekend: Earliest Human Walking Ancestor Found?

In an effort to expand my archaeological horizons outside of classical and hopewell, I decided to ask a few questions. The following is an email exchange between Mr. Patrick and myself that occurred on Sunday March 6th.

Steve,

This is great stuff. Things I don't know about though... how much does the Tibia offer proof that these are remains of a bi-pedal ancestor to humans?? Is the ancestor part complete speculation?? Can they be certain that their dating methods are accurate--3.8-4 million years old? I don't know much about bones and if dating can be relied upon.

What is it about Africa anyway? I can't remember this from Anthro 200-probably b/c I was sleeping with my eyes open...

"The findings have not been reviewed by outside scientists or published in a scientific journal." This to me is again interesting... will this story fade as other anthro's review and take a look at the bones??

What do you think? You have far more experience in this area than I...

Laura

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Laura,

The tibia is solid proof for bipedalism and if compared with other known ancestors *which is how I'm assuming they came to this conclusion* it is possible to conclude that this is an ancestor as well. If it looks like a duck, then it is a duck, that kind of thing. As far as the dating is concerned... that's probably a good call that it is questionable... Usually dates of these early hominid sites involve dating the geology surrounding the find. It's odd they didn't mention how they came by the date. It'll be interesting to see if this story fades away as you said.
With regards to "what is it about Africa anyway?"... that's just where the earliest hominids have been found. Lucy, footprints at Laetoli, Taung child, etc. There are theories that it all started there and then our ancestors (H. erectus) migrated out from there because of environmental pressures, or just general curiosity. It's also possible that there were multiple points on the earth for human evolution... because there have been some incredibly old finds in Asia which date to when the "migration" should have occurred... so either they were in a big damn hurry or the theory needs tweaked a bit.
Just thought this story on MSN was more interesting than the usual "J. Lo has New Man" type stories... :O)

-Steve
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Steve,

Thanks for your explanation... reminded me of several things I learned long ago now. Interesting that you mention potential problems with migration. A story broke recently--a few months ago?--that similar human ancestor bones where uncovered in South Carolina --which would completely rewrite the timeline of migration and when the first humans arrived in North America. I thought the article a bit odd though, archaeologists where only going off a few bone fragments which to me is completely absurd.

Are there any theories out there at to WHY it all started in Africa? I don't know much about this subject.

Laura
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Laura,

I hadn't heard that about the find in South Carolina... I'd be very interested in checking that out... you'll have to remind me of that later. The best theories about why it started in Africa revolve around either environmental pressures encouraged the evolution of a biped or that there were problems in the ape-world that made it advantageous to use your hands while moving. There are a lot of problems associated with bipedalism as opposed to quadrapeds (backpain, knee and ankle injuries, vulnerability to predators, etc), so there must have been a good reason to switch modes of transportation.

There is a guy up at Kent State named Lovejoy who thought it was a maternal issue... that the mother needed to stand in order to hold her young as they crossed the grasslands. It could also be a matter of perspective... you can get a better look over the savannah to watch for predators if you're standing. At any rate, something made these little guys stand up and walk across the savannah.

In terms of migration, I don't know why we couldn't evolve in several areas... if civilization can develop in six distinct places in antiquity, why can't the same be the case for evolution? However, I do think that the North America thing is a little preposterous... maybe I'm just old-fashioned. :O)

-Steve