May2014

CAREERS IN ARCHAEOLOGYCAREERS IN ARCHAEOLOGYTHERE IS STILL SO MUCH LEFT TO LEARN AND DOCarl R. ShieldsCarl R. Shields is an archaeologist with the Division of Environmental Analysis, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, in Frankfort, Kentucky.“By the year 2000, most Native American groups will disappear.”That is what my mother told me in 1976 when I was learningabout the Yanomami in my fourth-grade social studies class.That left an impression, and instilled in me the belief thatanthropologists were quite important.Then I read Potawatomi Indian Summer, a children’s book by E.William Oldenburg. It started me thinking about what life wasreally like centuries ago and questioning what we actually knowabout the past. During a trip to Mexico with my ninth-gradeSpanish class, I visited Teotihuacan. The architecture, the artifacts,the murals, and the scope of the city were amazing! But atthe same time, the guides and staff at the site stressed howmuch was still left to be learned. At that moment I knew: I wantedto become an archaeologist.During my undergraduate studies at Michigan State University,I sought out ways to become involved in archaeological work. Iended up volunteering in the lab for Mark Esarey, one of thegraduate students who was studying and excavating Fort Gratiot,a War of 1812 fort. I enjoyed cataloguing and preparing artifactsfor metal conservation so much that I went on to take thefield school at Fort Gratiot, which Mark taught. It was an awesomesite! The whole experience reaffirmed my desire to be anarchaeologist. I received a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology in1989.I was first exposed to Cultural Resource Management work(CRM) in the fall of that year, prior to entering graduate school.And I did not like it. It wasn’t so much the fieldwork, whichentailed testing sites around Missouri’s Truman Reservoir.Rather, it was the kind of sites we were working on. Most datedto the Archaic period, and we were finding only lithics. I wasmore interested in Mesoamerica and ceramics. However, thefieldwork improved my excavation skills; the exposure to othercultural periods gave me an appreciation for archaeologists andresearch elsewhere; and the field experience was important tomy professional development. Receiving a paycheck for doingarchaeology was pretty cool, too! A subsequent CRM projectinvolved survey for a pipeline. After weeks of digging shovelprobes across southern Ohio in freezing to sub-zero temperatures,often in blizzard conditions, I swore I would neverbecome involved in CRM again.I pursued a Master’s degree at SUNY Buffalo, completing mycoursework and participating in research excavations at La Quemadain the state of Zacatecas, Mexico, and Mimbres sites nearTruth or Consequences, New Mexico. Teaching assistantships atSUNY Buffalo were hard to obtain, and I was unlikely to receiveone while at school there. My advisor helped me to get a job asa field director for a CRM project run by the university’s ArchaeologicalSurvey.It was a recipe for disaster. I came to the project late, and so Iwas not its first director. I had little prior supervisory experience.Equipment got left behind at the lab. I wasn’t very clearabout field methods— I was always second-guessing whetherthe features were actually tree falls. Despite these issues, wecompleted the fieldwork and I produced a finished report, butI‘m still embarrassed about the whole process. Credit goes tothe field crew for their good field methods and notes, to the specialistsin the lab, and to the patience and understanding of SurveyDirector Elaine Bluhm. Once the final report was accepted,I again vowed never to work in CRM again. I keep that horriblereport as a reminder that you can improve with experience andtraining and that you should always look for ways to furtheryour career. While some situations might not be ideal, treatthem as opportunities to learn.Though I was only beginning to work on my Master’s project, Iknew I wanted to continue academically. I switched universities,arriving at the University of Kentucky (UK) in 1992 with theintention of entering the Ph.D. program. While I was there, Ihad a research assistantship, a teaching assistantship, and theopportunity to participate in a number of research projects,including work at Xochicalco in Morelos, Mexico.8 The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2014