Between now and October 17, 2015, Archaeology Southwest is participating in the Archaeological Institute of America’s celebration of International Archaeology Day (10/17/15) by sharing blog posts about why—or how—we became archaeologists. We hope you enjoy this very personal look at our staff members and the experiences that changed their lives forever. Today we feature Aaron Wright, a former Preservation Fellow who recently joined us as a Preservation Archaeologist. Aaron and Andy Laurenzi lead our efforts to establish the Great Bend of the Gila as a national monument. To read Bill Doelle’s story, posted on 10/9/15, click here.
(October 10, 2015)—Why I became an archaeologist…starts with how I became an archaeologist. I grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in southeast Ohio, near the confluence of Muskingum and Ohio Rivers. It’s a land layered deep in history.
The now-sleepy communities of Marietta (my birthplace) and Belpre (where I grew up) were, respectively, the first and second American settlements in the Northwest Territory, that vast expanse of the interior continent ceded by Great Britain in 1787 with the Treaty of Paris. Famed Revolutionary War veterans such as General Rufus Putnam and Manasseh Cutler were members of the “First Forty-Eight,” the original party who settled at Marietta.
The area’s historical significance persisted because the Ohio River was the major thoroughfare between the original colonies and the first States and the emerging frontier communities like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, and New Orleans. By virtue of being a port town, Marietta was tied into an international economy that moved natural resources from the American frontier to the Atlantic Coast and shuffled foreign and domestic immigrants and pioneers westward. Lewis and Clark even stopped and resupplied there on their quest to find the Northwest Passage.
The region’s colonial legacy is just the historical surface. This is also the land of the “Mound Builders.” Archaeologists attribute the mounds in southern Ohio to the Adena (1000–200 B.C.) and Hopewell (200 B.C.–A.D. 500), two Woodland archaeological traditions. Ancient mounds are so common in the area they even pop up in the parking lots of fast food restaurants. The most famous is the 30-foot-high Great Mound. Marietta’s founders thought of an ingenious way to protect this monument from destruction—in 1801, they established a cemetery around it. Mound Cemetery now preserves the Great Mound, as well as the most burials of Revolutionary War officers in the country. Perhaps the Founders of Ohio were also Founders of Preservation Archaeology?
When I was a kid, the past was ever-present because the communities of southeastern Ohio are so proud of their archaeological and historical heritage. Deep history is everywhere, and my earliest memories find me getting quite real with it. On a farm on the river floodplain, about a quarter-mile from our house, my older brothers found work picking tomatoes for 50 cents a bushel. Though at 5 years old I was too young to help, I desperately wanted to join them. It wasn’t the lure of the money, but rather the tales of arrowheads they found in the mud down by the river. The farm was atop a small Hopewell village, which, unlike the Great Mound, had been obliterated by plows long ago.
Though I never found an arrowhead on the banks of the Ohio, I found my opportunity closer to home. Every year my father, who descended from a long line of farmers, would till the backyard and plant a hodgepodge of crops. The churned-up soil, and all the strange and wonderful things that came up with it, fascinated me. Marbles, rocks I thought were fossils, bricks, and a Civil War-era silver spoon were my discoveries. I spent many days and nights thinking about how those curious things got there, who left them, how their lifestyle compared to mine, and where their descendants might live now. I had clearly been struck by the archaeology germ, though I didn’t quite realize it at the time.
Fast forward a little more than a decade and I’m a freshman in university looking for a major. Archaeology was the first discipline I looked for, but I didn’t find it listed among the departments. So, back to square one: I began to read the course guidebook from cover to cover, carefully trying to understand the many areas of study that were new to me. I started with the A’s—actuarial science, aeronautics, agronomy, etc. It was overwhelming because I had no idea what many of these big, science-y words meant.
Fortunately, after a few pages, I came across the classes filed under “anthropology.” My eyes nearly popped out as they fell upon words such as culture, evolution, religion, indigenous societies, and yes, archaeology. I asked myself, “So, this is what anthropology is, and I can get credit for studying this?” Awesome! The instructor for my first anthropology class had a background in cultural resource management—“You mean I can earn a living doing archaeology?” Bingo!
After graduating, I sent my resume to contract archaeology companies across the country, desperate to get my foot in the door. My first call came from a small firm in Santa Fe, and so I moved west, never looking back. Those first projects had very profound effects on me. We were excavating sites on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, just west of Raton and north of the Cimarron Valley. This beautiful country is the backdrop for a fascinating ancient cultural landscape of mixed/hybrid Plains and Pueblo traditions. We dug many sites, and we did it fast. This was the life of a shovelbum, and I quickly learned the nuts and bolts of dirt archaeology.
But it came a painful cost. Every so often, we would have to quit digging, put on our hard hats, and listen for the siren. See, we were “mitigating” (i.e., excavating) the sites before the coalmine came in. We’d sit quietly, try to eat our lunches, and watch in horror as the mountains across the valley erupted like volcanoes. Mining companies use explosives to get at the coal seams and, in the process, turn forested mountains into barren mesas. I had left Appalachia, where thousands of square miles of mountainous landscape had been and continue to be similarly eradicated, but I hadn’t escaped “mountaintop removal.” The term is so sterile, it sounds like a routine medical procedure. But whose health benefits?
Since those initial projects, I have spent most my field work conducting archaeological surveys. Many years of finding and documenting sites has taught me that we can learn a lot about the past without ever lifting a shovel or turning over a stone. Excavation has its place, but why dig things up and put a few artifacts and soil samples in bags and boxes when you can keep it all there, together, as a story for everyone to read and cherish? This is the Preservation Archaeology ethic, and one I am proud to agree with.
I love doing archaeology. It is who I am. But I lament destroying archaeology. Archaeological and historical sites are meaningful places, not just finite cultural resources. They are not proprietary to archaeologists, and they should be shared with the larger collective of people (including archaeologists) who identify with and find value in such places and objects. Artifact samples and site reports, albeit better than nothing, are poor surrogates for the actual places where people left their mark on the landscape.
So, back to the question, “why did I become an archaeologist?” The strong connection to the past I’ve felt since I was a young boy is why I chose to dedicate my life to archaeology. Equally telling, however, is that the experiences I’ve had learning and doing archaeology are why I choose to be a Preservation Archaeologist.
Aaron adapted his dissertation into an award-winning book, Religion on the Rocks (University of Utah Press, 2014).