Saturday, August 9, 2014

Archeologists Invade again


 We always have to tell people that we aren't archeologists.

Always. Every time.

And then on our special fossil identification day, who do we bring in on the grounds that people tend to also bring artifacts?

An archeologist.

We also brought in the National Park Service to talk about plesiosaurs, thus putting an apparently dinosaurian looking skull in front of everyone.

But it was really, really fun. I still love it when people bring in their fossils for us to identify, and I do enjoy archeology and had a good conversation with the guy about it. And got some little booklets he was handing out about it that I look forward to reading.

Between his table and Mike's table about fossils, people barely got to the door before they had seen cool stuff.

One thing that the archeologist had was a fish hook, curved just like a modern one, made out of a bird bone. I was really impressed that such a thing could be made with stone tools. That, and the tiny little arrowheads.

One of the visitors also brought in a bison bone that had been broken open, possibly by Native Americans, and stripped of the nutritious marrow. You could tell because of how it was broken.

After having the archeologists show up at our camp last summer and ask why we were out there in monsoon season (the reason being because we can't work at the same time as them and they take the dry season...and as they deal with humans they get priority), I've noticed a friendly rivalry between the two groups. But this guy was just really interesting, had some great stories about working alongside Mike, had a good sense of humor, and seemed to really engage people.

I just hope that people realized that the two were at different tables because they study different things.

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My Story (Very briefly...)

Lots of people claim that they wanted to be paleontologists at the age of 3. So did I. The problem is, I never really grew out of it. My third birthday party had dinosaurs. Everywhere. I grew up digging in fossil dirt from Aurora, NC, looking for coral and shark teeth. I practically lived at my local science museums (and still do, only now I get to do research, fossil preparation, and work in collections!) When local paleontologists discovered a dinosaur with a "fossilized heart" (no longer considered such) when I was little, I got to meet the man who led the work. And then, years later a dinosaur bone with soft tissue turned up. I was officially hooked.
No longer was I dreaming about dinosaurs. I was actively pursuing the science behind prehistoric creatures. I didn't want to read about it, I wanted in on the action. So I started working at the museum, and finally going on my own adventures. And thus, I needed a place to share them and maybe inspire others the way I was inspired. I have gone from watching fossils be prepared from one side of the glass at the museum to working on them on the inside of the glass. I am a student working toward my goal. I can finally start to call myself a paleontologist.