You know...

[hmpf]

I'm actually a really crappy archaeology student. I just have absolutely *no* clue what I'm doing. It's a bit sad to contemplate, really, because a) I'm not *actually* stupid, and b) I'm far too old, and far too advanced in my studies, to change subjects again.

Okay, I said I shouldn't post. Probably true. But I need to vent, because the frustration is killing me. So. I'm reading these texts. I'm supposed to draw information about the beginnings of metalworking in the eneolithic period in certain parts of Slovakia from it. The texts are short, and very dense. *Extremely* dense. The shortest is essentially a list of prehistoric cultures and cultural groups of the period in Slovakia and its adjoining countries. The geographical attribution is... vague. Especially for someone who does not have a very precise idea of Slovakian geography. There are no maps included. Of course, I have a map of Slovakia, but since a lot of the geographical attributions aren't of the kind you're going to find on a normal map, it's not much use. But even if the geography weren't as much of a mystery... Oh, I dunno, I think I'll have to give you an excerpt from my notes, although probably only tryfanstone and a certain Mystery Reader of this journal will be able to appreciate their uselessness. Anyway, here it is:



(Note: No, I don't know 99% of these groups and cultures, either.)

Early Eneolithic, older phase:

Eastern Slovakia: Lucky group of the Tiszapolgar culture
South-western Slovakia: Brodzany-Nitra group (phase Lengyel III)
Eastern Hungary: four local Tiszapolgar groups
Transdanubia: no Lengyel III
Eastern Hungary, Slovenia: Balaton-Lasinja culture, contemporary with Vinca-Plocnik and Krivodol-Salcuta in the Balkans

Early Eneolithic, younger phase:

Eastern Slovakia: two phases of the Bodrogkerestur and Laznany groups, also Hunyadihalom finds --> southern connections (Salcuta IV)
North-east Hungary: two phases of Bodrogkerestur, in period B also Hunyadihalom
Southern Slovakia/central Slovakian mountains: Ludanice group (Lengyel IV contemporary)

Final part of the younger phase of the early Eneolithic (Epilengyel period):

Ludanice replaced by (Furchenstichkeramik); towards the Danube progress of Vajska-Hunyadihalom group

Middle Eneolithic:

Cultural development united in Baden culture; oldest phase: Boleraz group in the western Carpathian basin, southern Transdanubia, Theiss area
Later split into Theiss and Danube branches of the Baden culture; local groups
End of period: Kostolac cultura (only in Hungary)

Transitional period/end of Baden culture:

Bosaca group, Kostolac culture (Iza-Michailovka-III type), Vucedol culture

Late Eneolithic:

Slovakia, south-west and south-east: Kosihy-Caka group, south-west also Somogyar-Vinkovci culture
Slovakia, north and east: Nyirseg-Zatin group
Spreading of Danubian and Balkans influences
(Schnurkeramik)


So, I sit here with my notes, and I wonder: What the *hell* am I supposed to do with that stuff? In two weeks I'm supposed to *talk* about this to my fellow students, so what am I going to tell them? Is there *anything* valuable in this for them? If I just throw all those names at them - unpronounceable names they've most likely never heard before (neither have I) - they'll fall asleep or at least forget about it in less than five minutes, and I couldn't blame them - I would, too.

So what do I do? Look up every single one of those cultures and groups and whatnot, compile typical inventories, chronology, cultural connections, and drown them in details they'll quite probably never need again - or if they do, won't remember from my talk, because hearing something like that once, in passing, isn't enough *by far*?

What is the fucking use in that?

And what am I supposed to draw from this for *myself*? What do I learn from this? That Slovakian place names are a hazard to your tongue and keyboard? Thanks, but I think I suspected that already...

Whenever I try to work on this damn paper, it feels as if my internal computer is about to crash. Too much information to process, and too little of it seems to be of any use in relation to what I'm supposed to talk about.

Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious. Maybe all the above *actually* isn't relevant, and I was supposed to find something a lot more useful in those texts. Or maybe the above *is* useful and I just lack the archaeologist's eye to see it. Anyway, it's frelling frustrating, and it makes me feel like a total beginner without a clue. I wish actually asking my prof about all this wouldn't make me feel like an idiot. I wish I were back in Birmingham - there, I didn't feel like an idiot when I asked fundamental stuff like that.

Comments

[tazlet.livejournal.com]

Well speaking as an amateur who's gone over the same damn territory-the above is totally usel...ah, hazardous to one's tongue. I got out the Big Book O European Prehistory (Milisauskas) and looked up Slovakia and the first thing I'd want to know is why are we talking about Slovakia at all? Are we talking ore deposits and of what kind? What wonderful (or not so wonderfu but maybe old and interesting) things have been found there? Piccies please. I want to know what and where the evidence of early metal working technology has been found and how it's been identified/ And, by the way, I want to see pictures or diagrams of the mining and smelting processes. And I want to see the tools-if there are any pictures. Then, when I had visuals, I relate specific items to specific cultures and, if possible, show the development of technique and it's diffusion-evidence of trade etc. But that's just me.

[unovis-lj.livejournal.com]

Copper artifacts (hammeraxes?), mostly; interesting because of slavonic migrations during the period?

[tazlet.livejournal.com]

This is pre-ice man, but they seem to be constantly pushing the technology back...

"There is a general view in the archaeological literature that Eneolithic metallurgy in general, and that of the brilliant Eneolithic cultures in the Balkans in particular, was based solely on the smelting of oxide ores. The beginning of sulphide ore processing is usually attributed to the Bronze Age. To test this view a survey of Eneolithic metal and crucibles with smelting residues from the Gumelnitsa and Varna Cultures of Bulgaria was made. These cultures can be dated from the second half of the 5th to the beginning of the 4th millennium bc (cal.).

Maby not migrations but nomads...

[tazlet.livejournal.com]

http://www.csen.org/koryakova2/Korya.Bronze.html

Well, I *still* don't know a lot about Slovakia...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

but slavonic migrations weren't mentioned anywhere in the texts, so I'd guess no. Actually I think this is way before anything can be tied to slavonic cultures specifically. You just can't make that kind of attribution on that timescale (six to seven thousand years ago).

Slovakia is no more or less interesting than any of a number of other places we're talking about this term. It's a seminar about early metal working in Europe, which means we're looking at a number of regions where copper working started early.

Re: Far too general.

[tazlet.livejournal.com]

That was a response to Unovis.

Well...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

why we're talking about Slovakia: because the subject of the seminar is early metalworking in all of Europe and parts of the Near East. Everyone got one geographical region to look into; I got Slovakia. And the texts recommended by my prof weren't exactly the most useful. (And yes, I know I have to find my own material as well, and not just stick with what my prof recommends... I just don't know where to start, really.)

What I'm usually most interested in is metal working technology - I'm a jeweller, after all! And I could even give an impromptu talk about that kind of thing - it doesn't vary much throughout most of prehistory, and I've read quite a bit about it already, and written a paper or two about it, too. If this were about technology, I'd be on safe ground.

However, metal working technology doesn't seem to come into this at all - or at least isn't mentioned anywhere in the texts. It's all typology and chronology. Which is how you get notes like the bit quoted above: long lists of unpronounceable names. I could add a list of types of copper axes of the periods and areas, and I even know where to find pictures of those - it's just that the entire thing strikes me as so damn useless.

There is a little bit of information about more useful stuff in those texts - where the metal may have come from; what cultural contacts are suggested by certain ores or certain stylistic features - but all of that is summed up in five minutes, and I'm supposed to talk for half an hour at least.

Re: Well...

[tazlet.livejournal.com]

-- it's just that the entire thing strikes me as so damn useless.

The entire thing strikes me as the 'arms race' of its day and I'm facinated. Add the list of copper axes--with pictures--lists are what (as a sweet little old british lady egyptologist said to me once) archeology is awl about.

Re: Well...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>The entire thing strikes me as the 'arms race' of its day and I'm facinated.

Do you come to that conclusion from the list of names above? Or from something else you've read that I haven't? Because I honestly can't draw *any* conclusion like that from the information I have so far - which generally looks a lot like the excerpt I gave above.

>Add the list of copper axes--with pictures--lists are what (as a sweet little old british lady egyptologist said to me once) archeology is awl about.

See, that's probably my problem with archaeology. I don't believe in lists. I believe that if you read people a list, they will forget. A list is good to remember something you've researched before, or to get an overview of something you already have some in-depth knowledge of. Giving people a list and expecting them to retain any kind of useful knowledge from it, though, is pretty much a lost cause. People need context to anchor abstract knowledge; a culture's name is abstract knowledge unless it's filled with and embedded in context.

Of course, this is not just a problem with *my* paper. It's a problem of nearly *every* paper I've heard at uni. It's probably the reason I remember so damn little of what I've heard in the last six years there. Lists - even if illustrated with nice drawings of copper axes - just aren't very memorable. And most papers are lists with a little bit of verbal padding.

Maybe this requires a different kind of intelligence than mine, I dunno.

[tazlet.livejournal.com]

If you don't have it, see if you can find a copy of "Early Metal Mining and Producation" by Paul T. Craddock.

Far too general.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I don't have it, but I'm sure I could get it in one of the libraries here. Doesn't sound like what I need, though. I don't need info about metal working in general - that part of the subject was someone else's topic to talk about, as was the theoretical background.

Re: Far too general.

[tazlet.livejournal.com]

You do need to read this book for the insight into what people had to go through to get to where they could even work the metal--as a conservator, I'm all about 'the stuff' and where it fits into culture; my most blinding realization was that, leaving use only partially aside, the two biggest factors affecting design are technology and politics!

Sounds like something I would be interested in.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Back when I still believed I could actually find a niche in archaeology where I could be happy, I sort of envisioned that niche to be somewhere in that area. As I said (somewhere in this thread?), I'm a jeweller, so I'm interested in the 'material' side of things very much (though not so much the typology etc. - more the questions of how and why people made things). As a person interested in cultural studies (my other study subject is American Studies, where I'm specialising in cultural studies) I am naturally also very interested in the social and cultural implications.

So, yes, definitely a book I will at some point read.

It does not have anything to do with what I'm supposed to talk about in a couple of weeks, though. That's really mostly about the chronology. :-(

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

"drown them in details they'll quite probably never need again - or if they do, won't remember from my talk, because hearing something like that once, in passing, isn't enough *by far*?

What is the fucking use in that?"

This, quite possibly, is the best description of vast swathes university education I've read in some time.

You should have just taken a drop out course like me! ;)

Or, you know, you could just do your last two years of uni at Birmingham (since you've already done one year) which is as long as it'll take you in Germany anyway... Or I could stop unsubtly hinting that you live too far away and go back to being supportive in the face of stupidly dense archeology books. Yes, I will do that.

TBRFKASK

University

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>This, quite possibly, is the best description of vast swathes university education I've read in some time.

Actually, I don't think so. A lot of what I do in my other courses is vastly more useful to me than this. Yes, in my other courses I'm only learning things like how to analyse novels according to the method of objective hermeneutics - but that's something I feel is training my mind in ways that I may have some use for later. Now, *this* - I don't know what this is supposed to do for me or anyone else. I always feel that after so-and-so many years at university, I should begin to accrue some amount of archaeological knowledge, and an idea of how to *work* on archaeological questions - but so far, I'm still as clueless as I was in my first term.

This particular kind of cluelessness is difficult to describe. It's the very *problem* that's vague here. But I know that it's not a general university thing, because I don't get that feeling in American Studies. I know what I'm doing when I'm working on something for American Studies, and I feel that I'm learning things, making progress. I can ask questions that makes sense there.

In archaeology, I don't even know what questions to ask, and I have made no progress whatsoever in the last six years.

Going to Birmingham again is not an option. Far too expensive, and it would take far too much time to get it organised. Also, at this point, I don't want to spend another two years at university.

[ommadon.livejournal.com]

Just because this stuff doesn't float your boat, that doesn't make you a bad archaeology student. It just means that when you come to choose what you want to do in the Real World you pick something that doesn't involve rusty old bits of metal from Slovakia *g* If I were you I'd go out and get myself a geological map of the area and see if those groups in your list tie into areas of deposition of various metal ores, or failing that take a *very* deep breath sit back on your heels and (as you suggested) look each of them up - remember only about 10% of academia is about *useful* work :D

But you see...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I am *interested* in metal. It's just that none of this actually *is* about metal.

[mischief5.livejournal.com]

Forgive me for jumping in here but this sounds like it's a little more in my majors, history/anthropology. From what you're describing above, it's about the movement of technology through time, space and generations. It's not moving very far, only through the Slovakian region, but it is moving. It's also moving from group to group: the trade of information amongst contemporaries. And it's moving from generation to generation.

Sometimes you have to remember that archaeology is about the things that *people* use. Why did they use them? Why did they share the information? Why did they carry the information to new places? What happened later to make the groups split off into different styles? Did the climate at the time help or hinder the progress of information?

Just some questions that popped up for me. If they help you, great. If not, please ignore the ramblings of the madwoman in the back row. :)

Well, movement and change is what it's all about, all the time, really.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Not just this paper but all of archaeology.

It's just that - at least to me, but maybe I *am* a bit stupid, seeing as how most of you guys seem to be able to make more sense of this than I am ;-) - the list of cultures above does not tell me a whole lot about that. If I started researching each of these cultures and then comparing them - okay, *then* we'd be getting somewhere. But that's a bit beyond the scope of a thirty minute talk and a twenty page paper. So what I'm left with is a list of names that don't mean anything to me or my listeners. If I knew more about this, I could at least decide which of these are *really* important, and look into those a bit more...

(Actually, I just bit the bullet and asked the assistant involved in the seminar about this whole culture thing and she gave me a few pointers, so I *may* be getting somewhere now, finally... let's hope so.)

Oh, and as for all those 'why' questions... those are the questions we don't dare ask in archaeology. ;-) Well, most of the time. Certainly not in this case - there simply isn't enough time for that. This is merely about the 'what' and 'how', not about the 'why'.

Oh, crumbs! (More than 20 words indeed.)

[tryfanstone.livejournal.com]

OK. This is likely to be quite long, and contains a disclaimer to start with, so if you want to stop reading after that be my guest!

Prehistory is emphatically *not* my field. (In academia, theoretical archaeology esp. gender, sexuality - fifteen years ago, it was quite exciting! and early medieval to modern. I spent fifteen years in field archaeology, not at university, and I specialised in site survey and illustration.) So I cannot and do not intend to comment intelligently about early Slovakian metallurgy, about which you know far more than I.

However. I like giving seminars, I have given them often in a number of subjects, and do to this day. (Although this morning's was...customer service and add-on sales.) So:

In general terms, I would treat your seminar as a communication rather than an essay, and plan out according. I shown you what I'd do below, but I am *not* you, I don't know your style, university or fellow students, so feel absolutely free to completely ignore. I won't mind at all, apart from in a wish I could be more use kind of way.



1. This is what I'm going to do in the next half hour. Explain, briefly. Add in if there will be a chance to ask questions. Add in that you will give out brief notes after the presentation.

2. This is what I'm talking about: this is the area of Europe I'm discussing (expand): this is the timeframe. Define what you mean by beginnings of metallurgy and archaeological evidence for.

3. Then I'd move on to your cultures.

And here is where I say, I too would baulk faced with the data above, which really doesn't mean anything at all as it is. My inclination, *immediately*, is to illustrate - phase drawings, effectively - for each period. Where you have cultures that continue or recognisably develop from earlier cultures, I would keep the same colouration. Where the culture shows radical change, I would change the colour.

(Ten years ago, I'd be saying, send me the stuff and I'd do it for you, but I am quite sure you have the skills and software to do quickly)

This gives you a prompt to talk from, and a reminder as well, so you are not talking directly from your notes. It makes it more interesting for your participants, too.

If there's anything interesting (Hm. archaeologically distinctive :) ) which distinguishes the culture, I'd mention it during this process, with maybe a couple of sites to reference. I would also consider at this point if there are surrounding related cultures I need to mention now - you do list some.

4. I would then attempt to place your cultures in context, archaeologically speaking. ie, during this period developments in Slovakia proceeded in isolation from/were seen to influence developments in surrounding areas. Artefacts from Slovenia have bgeen discovered in X, X and X, suggesting contact (or lack of it, whatever.)

5. Finally, because I'm me, I would be attempting to link what you have just described into the wider theoretical picture. "Thus it can be said that the model of metallurgic development as seen here in Slovakia, fits very well into (lord, I'm not pulling out Renfrew at this time of night) X's model of adaptive behaviour, although Y's emphasis on cultural communication is also illustrated by the artefact spread here, revealed by Z's survey of 1992. I would like to conclude, therefore, by stating that this previously neglected area of Eastern Europe gives a remarkably clear image of general trends across the continent.

"Thank you. Johanna, I'll pass the handout to you first, if you wouldn't mind passing it on, and has anyone any questions?

6. Handout - I'd use your illustrations above, and here's where your list goes, and no more than a couple of paragraphs of text. Indeed, summarise your presentation notes, if easier.

...oh lord, I've got awfully prescriptive and lecturish. I really don't meant it like that at all - it's what I'd do, not what I think you should do. And hey, if you got this far, good luck.

Re: Oh, crumbs! (More than 20 words indeed.)

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

See... and that's what makes you a *real* archaeologist, and me a bit of a pretender. Because I have neither the skills nor the knowledge to do it the way you suggest (which, I agree, is how I *should* be doing it, if I were able to. Yes, I know, in theory, how to organise something like this; I've even done it a couple of times.)

I've actually tried to come up with some form of useful visual depiction of the phases and cultures for the last couple of days now, but I don't have enough information. Or rather, the information I have is not consistent enough in its geographical attributions, among other things. Also, I just don't *know* anything about these cultures, so I can't compare them or find any kind of connections between them (unless it's mentioned explicitly in the text). And researching them all to the degree necessary to compare them would require far more time than I'm given for this. This is not an M.A. thesis or anything, it's just a short paper, the kind you write at least one or two of every term. And the cultures aren't even that central to it. So, I'm kind of left with the stupid list above. The only thing I could do would be to decide to leave parts of it out entirely, as it's so useless in the first place. It's a bit hard to decide what's important, though, if you know so little.

Thankfully, I don't think anything really 'professional' is expected of me (although I think it should be, if university were worth a damn, and I think I *should* be able to do it, too, if *I* were worth a damn as an archaeologist). So, I'll probably muddle through, just like everybody else does.

Oh, god, I'm so frustrated with archaeology [as taught here]. Does it show?

(At least I'm still enthusiastic, and getting more enthusiastic, even, about my other subject, American Studies.)

Fudge. (I'd mention clotted cream, but maybe not in Germany)

[tryfanstone.livejournal.com]

Yes, your frustration does show. I really do understand and sympathise - the reason I left academic archaeology was because I lost all patience with the..er, presentation and development of the discipline as an academic endeavour?

I am firmly convinced that, all these cultures...they are each the product of a single influential and regional archaeologist, who refused to talk to his/her colleagues. Actually, they're identical. :)
..like everyone's Anglo-Saxon hall being a palace.

(Honestly, it's much more fun on site.)

Seriously, fudge.

On images (I keep going on about this, it's my stock-in-trade)
You don't *need* exactness. Large blobs of colour will do fine - who's going to be looking that closely? All you need to do is give a general idea as seen from five rows back. :)

On details.
You don't have to detail every culture. Name them, maybe, but there isn't enough time to discuss them - talk about the ones you do have info on. People will be impressed you have any material!

On theory
Ditto. In all honesty, you can fit almost anything to anything. Find three popular models, and see if you can fit the data to the idea, in outline - or not. (Yeah, I know.)

I'll shut up now. But will add, I think there is enormous value in being an archaeologist who *does* think outside the box - this is stupid. This doesn't make sense. And furthermore, that the really exciting work was, er, being done in America...(One of my colleagues has just finished his phd in the American way of death. Fascinating stuff.)

But the very best of luck. After all, you could maybe change courses without, or even outside, the subject?

Clotted cream is nice (if part of cream tea) ;-) Damn, I'm hungry.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>Yes, your frustration does show. I really do understand and sympathise - the reason I left academic archaeology was because I lost all patience with the..er, presentation and development of the discipline as an academic endeavour?

Care to elaborate? This was probably before my time... ;-) and in a different country, to boot, which in archaeology means as much as 'on another planet', or so I sometimes think...

>I am firmly convinced that, all these cultures...they are each the product of a single influential and regional archaeologist, who refused to talk to his/her colleagues. Actually, they're identical. :)

*snerk*

>On images (I keep going on about this, it's my stock-in-trade)
You don't *need* exactness. Large blobs of colour will do fine - who's going to be looking that closely? All you need to do is give a general idea as seen from five rows back. :)

Oh, now I get what you mean! Yikes, I misunderstood you earlier. Yeah, actually, I *could* do that. (Not with the computer, though - I have no idea how to do something like that on a computer. But, coloured pencils on a photocopied map should do just fine, I think.)
Will have to think about that - if it makes sense or not. Kind of depends on how much space I give to the cultures shebang in general.

What I was thinking about earlier was more like a chronology table, but, as I said, I was having some difficulties trying to create one that would be of any use.

>On theory
Ditto. In all honesty, you can fit almost anything to anything. Find three popular models, and see if you can fit the data to the idea, in outline - or not. (Yeah, I know.)

Well... all the really relevant theories have been discussed at the beginning of the seminar by another student. And nothing I've read so far really fits them, anyway. So, I think I'll probably avoid trying to link my meagre info about Slovakian early metal working to any kind of theory.

>I'll shut up now.

Thanks for putting up with my whining! ;-)

>But will add, I think there is enormous value in being an archaeologist who *does* think outside the box - this is stupid. This doesn't make sense. And furthermore, that the really exciting work was, er, being done in America...(One of my colleagues has just finished his phd in the American way of death. Fascinating stuff.)

The problem with me is, I don't think outside the box - I just get paralysed. I get as far as 'this is stupid', and then I stop there. (A long-standing flaw of mine, actually - screwed up many a stupid homework task back in school, many a year ago... 'This essay topic's so *stupid*! I can't write about that!' - So I didn't. And got a bad grade. *g*) Mine's a critical mind without the originality or the confidence to find my *own* way.

>But the very best of luck. After all, you could maybe change courses without, or even outside, the subject?

Come again? (Seriously: the last sentence somehow overtaxes my English. Weird. That doesn't happen often anymore.)

Elaborating!

[tryfanstone.livejournal.com]

Easy stuff first!

Ack, I meant, (a) can you change course within the subject, bearing in mind it's coming to the end of this academic year (in the UK), or (b) I presume you could swop entirely to American Studies?
Sorry, it's not your superb English, it was my wonky late-night phrasing.

Chronology. I've been thinking about this, between boxes, all day. I began to wonder if what you actually meant was some kind of time-line or table. So skip if irrelevant!

I don't think a linear timeline will work - one of those ones that look like gant charts? - you're right, there simply isn't enough information to get the relative position of each culture. However,

I did wonder if you could go for some kind of column affair. Say, three columns, one for your Eneolithic periods, one for your cultures, and a further column for distinguishing sites/assemblages? Equally, would display reasonably easily if blown up. Suspect you've though about this already, and the only thing I could add would be to suggest column 1a, relating to better-known European cultures. Which may make it more relevant? But I know you've little information.

and BTW, I'm interested that you liked Birmingham Uni. I did my masters at the Ironbridge Institute, aeons ago, and suffered, but suspect it's changed a bit.


Which leads me onto leaving academic archaeology.

Well, you see, you have to imagine me all wide-eyed and interested. I'd been away from home three years, I'd been studying...sociology, psychology, politics, some linguisitics: I wanted IDEAS and DISCUSSION.
I discovered that in terms of currrent theoretical thought (1990-94) archaeology still thought Foucault was the Next Best Thing.

Yikes.

Then I had the yr 2/3rd year conversations with lecturers, once I did move into theoretical archaeology. Now, I want to read *everything*, and I read far more deeply then than I do now. I became impatient with and intolerant of the, as I felt it, old-fashioned and derivative theory as proposed by my Professors. There were arguments. Er, discussions. A good time was had by all, and the right words were written in the exams, and so on, but I truly began to feel that if that was the way academic archaeologists treated the foundations of theory (Er, you mean you haven't read the *original source*?) then how reliable was their word on the basics of practical exposition - site analysis?

There were other things to do with that department (Durham), wich I shall not go into.

Then when I did hand in my Phd proposal, after Ironbridge (I was running home - I did get that discussion, in the end, I just stumbled across it, shocked, in the backrooms and kitchens of Durham's biker culture) it was smilingly re-written for me by one of the above professors. I couldn't do it: I went on site. And loved it. :)

However. Whilst on site, I did meet with, not any German archaeologists, but a goodly measure of people who had worked over in Germany. What's it like? What do they do? The only bits I can remember are that, it was said that the money was good. And *they're* very interested in typology and chronology. (Which sounds rather like the typical English comment on Germans, so I am a little suspicious.)

But if that is the case, and you have less of the social interpretation and challenging of theory (1950s theory, muttered here) undertaken here. And maybe less practical? Then I am not surprised you'd want to be somewhere else, for to my mind this takes a lot of the pleasure of discovery and interpretation out of the subject.

But I am extrapolating from very few facts, and feel free to to tell me I'm wrong.

Hope all well.

Some more navel-gazing...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I *think*... what's happening here is just me discovering that I *really* don't have the kind of intelligence or capabilities needed to be an archaeologist, at least not in Germany. (I felt okay in Birmingham.) There is a very specific way of working, of approaching a subject/question here, that I just can't seem to grasp, although I'm vaguely aware of what it should be. As I said, I don't think I'm stupid, exactly - in fact, I'm pretty certainly quite a bit above average intelligence. But there are ways of thinking that are, and apparently will always be, foreign to me, and the archaeological way of thinking seems to be among those. I keep hitting odd walls in my head... either overgeneralising, or getting paralysed by details, or just getting totally lost in information. I am deadly afraid of drawing conclusions or establishing hypotheses, of making any but the most obvious connections... Ah, there are so many issues here, it's depressing even to try to list them.

Clotted cream or not, have you looked at the *time*?

[tryfanstone.livejournal.com]

...I think you raise some very, very interesting points. But I am at work, for another blasted 12-hour day of moving boxes, in eight hours time!

Will reply tomorrow. :)