I have been browsing Veeky Forums for 10 years and just realized this board existed

Currently working on an MA in anthropology here. My subfield is archaeology (for the non-Americans, archaeology is a subfield of anth here).

Anthropology lol like how can humans be real if our brains aren't real lmao. Archaeology > Anthropology - the things don't lie

>welcome aboard

two years ago on halloween I did get drunk. But by myself.

Okay yeah well Ok?

I'm no /pol/ack q_q

heheheheh aw

Oh sick! I'm slowly plugging away at my undergrad. N. America also. Doin archaeology field school this summer which gets me a certificate to do CRM work here... But desu salvage archaeology doesn't really interest me. Getting some hands on experience has been cool, tho

Don't know what I want to specialize in. I'm just wrapping up 2nd year and then I got another semester after that to meet my lower division reqs for my major

Interpretation of material culture is somehow objective now?? Pls see 'Venus figurines'

i'm just gonna pretend u is one of those hunnies and i'll see u in one of my classes next semester, hunny

>Doin archaeology field school this summer which gets me a certificate to do CRM work here
Was that at CWU? It's the only CRM-specific field school I know about. Hopefully your experience was good. In my experience some places handle field schools in shitty ways and students don't get much out of it. A good field school is an amazing experience, though.

As far as specializations go, it's really a matter of finding something your school does that also fits your personality. Most schools don't really have all subfield present, which can narrow the choice. Stereotypically, people choose archaeology because they don't want to deal with living people.

I hate it when there's a nice thread going on and some fag decides to ruin it with his sources

No, I'm at a 2-yr college atm and one of the profs from the department has certification so he puts on field schools whenever he can here. Unfortunately we've been sort of limited in what we can do because it's in town and the city doesn't want any visible archaeology going on, partially b/c fear of looters, but also b/c we are dealing with unceded First Nations territory and our study area has land claims from 3 bands SO we gotta tread lightly

and yeah, honestly that's why I started to lean towards arch hahah. I don't have great people skills. I'm also interested in medical anth. tho so who knows. I've been working with one of my profs who's a medical anthropologist on some harm reduction initiatives at my college and it's been interesting

The things themselves are indeed objective insofar as anything can ever be, our interpretations of them however aren't. That's what I love, there is a true story locked in every artifact, you just have to have a good enough explanation as to why your interpretation of it is the most valid. I'm just messing though, I'm actually somewhat jelly of you guys' anthro field, here in yuronorth it's basically sociology

oh yeah I guess we have nut jobs like Boas to thank for American style anthropology

But yeah I also enjoy putting together bits of evidence to come up with a compelling interpretation! Mortuary rituals and how that relates to wider social structures like wealth and gender-based status n hierarchies/lack thereof are my steez.

>software engineer
>tfw all I've ever wanted was to be comfy and study history

With your salary you could probably afford the career change! You could also cut back on hours at work and take classes part-time. You'd probably love it.

What does OP being a pleb have to do with history?

That sounds like an interesting project. I'm guessing you're in Canada because you're saying "First Nations;" I don't really know about how things are up there. And while there is some validity to the argument that archaeology is good for people with poor social skills, poor social skills will hurt your archaeology as much as any other field. It's actually kind of hurting the field as a whole, since most archaeologists don't care very much about spreading their research or engaging the public. Basically, don't choose it because you want to avoid people. Archaeology isn't about not socializing, it's about how artifacts relate to people.

Medical anth can be cool, too. My grad school actually has one of the top medical anth programs in the US. It's not my thing, but there's some really cool stuff that can be done, especially in the US with its weird system.

This. It takes some people a lot of time to realize that archaeological interpretations really can't be objective. There's no way you can dig up a perfectly factual account of the past. You're stuck with a bunch of things that you have to piece together and argue with. Some people find it frustrating, I love it.

Well in BC, where I'm at specifically, land claims and First Nations are a big deal. 90% of the mainland indigenous groups or 'bands' have never negotiated treaties and there is a real big push for self-governance and stuff. Archaeology that happens here today is either A) salvage or B) projects initiated by the bands themselves (to a lesser extent, as bands resources are limited in contrast to resource development firms who have to cough up the cash for an archaeological impact assessment whenever they want to put a dam or pipeline or whatever in)

And yeah, there's an ethnoarchaeology course that we have had to take as part of the field school. Spending the last few weeks of that class discussing what a 'community-centered' or indigenous archaeology means. In BC especially archaeology needs to be done in cooperation with First Nations because it's their history and their ancestors archaeologists are dealing with. And what with Canada's Indian Act and assimilation policies culture + First Nations = proceed with caution

I can only imagine what possibilities there would be for medical anth in the US haha. My prof worked on the downtown east side in the city at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. Similar thing going on now with the opioid crisis and medical anth feels pretty relevant on a local-level atm