Beyond High School - March Edition [Final]

Welcome to interactive presentation, created with Publuu. Enjoy the reading!

At the onset, we need to realise that the past was as complex as the present is. Therefore,

whatever skills and perspectives that we need to study the present, be it based in the

natural sciences, social sciences, humanities or the arts, we can employ the same to study

the past.

An archaeologist, at the root of it all, dabbles in everything possible to reconstruct past

human behaviours and lifestyles. So, whatever your interests: how we became human;

how did art and music develop; when and how did we start speaking and writing; or how

did we end up in even the most remote of islands, you can pursue them with archaeology.

An archaeologist, thus, has to be adaptable. They need to be willing to travel to the most

obscure of places, be willing to live in difficult and trying settings, mingle with many

different people, be open-minded and most of all, patient! After all, it took Howard Carter

over 10 years of hard work to finally discover King Tut’s tomb! Being an archaeologist also

requires a lot of library and archival work - most of our time is spent with books, maps,

images and reports, with the field being only a small component.

So, if you do want to be an archaeologist, go for it! Bring in your set of skills, and ‘dig’ up

some fun aspects of our past. However, always remember, as Indiana Jones himself says,

‘Archaeology is the search for fact, not truth. If it’s truth you're interested in, [the]

Philosophy class is right down the hall. So, forget any ideas you’ve got about lost cities,

exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and “X”

never, ever marks the spot. 70% of all archaeology is done in the library. Researching.

Reading. We cannot afford to take mythology at face value.’

PHONE CALL TO PROFESSOR

Beyond High School | Page 8

“Hello! Am I speaking to Dr Akash? I was hoping you could

let me know if watching Indiana Jones is enough to start

my journey as an Archaeologist?”

Hi! Yes of course, one may often wonder what it takes to

be Nathan Drake in this reality. What are the skills I need

to develop to become a real- world time-traveller? Well, as

Warwick Bray, a Latin American archaeologist stated in

1981, ‘…there are two kinds of archaeology: archaeology

as perceived by archaeologists, and archaeology as

perceived by [a person] on the street. Each of these

archaeologies has its own history…’. So, if you do want to

be an archaeologist, what does it take?!

Akash Srinivas

Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for

Interdisciplinary Archaeological

Research, Ashoka University.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18