Tales of the lab

As you may or may not know, I work in a local museum as my G.A. position. This includes having to give guided tours from time to time and always having to lead people through the archaeology lab that we have. When there were excavations on the site, this was the pace dedicated to analysis and collections management. Since then, this is the space we use as our office (a.k.a. our table next to an outlet where we all plug in our computers). We have set up the remainder of the space as a hands on archaeology lab geared at children. The exhibit is completely hands on and provides basic level information in conjunction real artifacts. This ends up being where people spend a lot of time and we have to stay with them to ensure that there is no theft.

Ok, so I knew that with the material we had that there would be a lot of questions and actions that I would not expect, but thought that I would learn from them. Like learning more about patience when they mix all the small pieces that were separated into type, into one large pile. I knew those kinds things would happen. Today brought out some new experiences and comments, just as every day does, and they deserve to be shared.

Where to start? Ok, I had some preschool students in here the other day and while the material presented is very dense, we are pretty successful on engaging a wide range of students. We have an ethnobotany portion of the exhibit that has river cane, pumpkin seeds, kidney beans, red corn, and some died cane strips. Well usually people just feel their way through it and move on. For some reason these pre-schoolers decided that tasting them was the only way to figure out if they were real. Pick up a seed, lick it, and stick it back in the pile for the person behind you to lick. And not just the seeds, these kids were licking the cane too. We have a science scale(grams) used to show how much of different types of materials that you need to do carbon dating. Well little did I know that this was going to be the place to test the weight of everything including shoes, gum, hands, belts, wallets, keys, and you get the point. We also have a piece of wood with a spear head attached to one end showing how you attached a projectile point to a shaft. Well, today that became the "Shank." And granted, I guess that the term could be given to that object, however I am just not used to the term shank or would have ever came to term. This same group also wanted conformation that Native Americans smoked pot. It was here that we got frustrated because people don't realize that pot is not indigenous to TN and therefore would not have been around to smoke unless they got it through trade. It is more likely that they smoked natural herbs and later tobacco, not POT. And what was the one constant comment that I heard today, it was about my phone, not even an artifact. This is on top of people testing whether a projectile point is sharp or not by trying to cut themselves, trying to hear noises through the conch shell, trying to get a skeleton to stand up on its own, and many, many more.

It is at these points that I realize how many cultural and education things I take for credit. I find myself intrigued, frustrated, and hysterically laughing all at the same time. I find myself challenged everyday when it comes to dealing with children and when it comes to dealing with the public in general. And as my wife will like to know, I am really enjoying having interaction with children. The challenge of appealing to all ages on a whim has been a challenge, but finding that connection with a kid and them becoming enthusiastic and excited about archaeology and anthropology really makes me happy. Looks like I will keep kids and teaching as possibilities in my future.

Heritage Days at the Museum

The large, flat-topped, ceremonial mound.

As many of you know, I work as a graduate assistant at a museum. The museum is focused on the Native American Archaeological site on which it sits. This past week was the museum's main event in that we opened the grounds to school groups and provided crafts, hatchet and atlatl (spear thrower) trials, mock archaeological dig, and dancing and stick-ball demonstrations. We had anywhere from 300 to 1600 kids on a given day and it was absolutely......ridiculous. I consider myself as being very good with kids, but the sheer volume of children was really an issue with me. I felt very out of control and out of my element. Not that anything went wrong, except when the girl fell and broke her arm, but it was just not a comfortable experience for me.





Needless to say there were a lot of issues that came up regarding my anal-retentiveness, need for organization, and need for people to all be on the same page. There was a lot of information that people weren't sharing with each other and lot of mis-communication that made things very hectic, not necessarily go wrong. The other real issue I have is of the portrayal of the culture of the Native Americans themselves. Selling dream catchers, wooden tomahawks, drums made of coffee cans, and selling flat bread and taco's as "traditional" foods really feeds into the many stereotypes that are already alive and really are doing a lot of harm. People automatically think that all Native Americans wore long feathered head-dress, scalped people with tomahawks, and lived in Tepees. These are the types of things that we are trying to educate against yet these individuals are trying to make money any way possible and diminish their own perception and culture for the almighty dollar. As you could expect, there are a lot of other things that go into the whole ....issue...that is the museum. Just wanted to vent some of my frustrations.

Presidental Candidate Ad Campaigns

I know that all of us are being plagued with the abundance of ad campaigns for this election through all medias, including the internet, yet there is still something very interesting about the process and the repeating themes that happen during ad campaigns through out the years.

To give the public a good archive of the use and types of ad campaigns, the Museum of the Moving Image has curated all television campaign ads ever produced for your scrutiny. The site is The Living Room Candidate and it really puts into perspective the annoying and often controversial television ad campaigns, both successful and unnecessary, that we have been plagued with over the years.

For example, here is an ad directed directly towards women voters in Dwight Eisenhower's television commercial.




There are also a number that you can find that are exact precursors to those being shown today in regards to Obama and Paulin's lack of experience.

It is a very interesting phenomenon and much like Hollywood one can establish the remake of some very influential commericals over the years.

Check it out.

Kid in a Candy Shop

I have had a very "Willie Wanka-ish" experience over the past couple of days. Or maybe better termed "Kid in a Candy Shop." Call it what you want, it has been amazing.....in a nerdy way of course. I have been stressed with getting exhibits together and getting things looking professional before the premier of our new exhibit on Friday night. There has been a lot of design, altering, stapling gluing, and pulling together projects in a matter of minutes. I have to say that all of our hands on stuff looks amazing and I can't wait to let people experience working with projectile points over 8,000 years old. What has been so amazing though is going through all the pictures and artifacts that the museum has collected over the past 60 or so years. Everything from full pots, human remains, and ceremonial weapons to projectile points showing evidence of use, pictures of the original excavation, and pottery that looks like it was made yesterday. Trying to decide what needs to be brought back into the public view, what can't be brought back in public view, and what we have that needs to go untouched to preserve them (we walk a fine line). I have seen so many amazing things over the past couple of weeks that it really makes me remember why it is that I do like archaeology and explaining things to people helps me realize the amount of knowledge that I have gained along the way. I have had some experiences with children in the archaeology lab recently and being able to engage and excite them on archaeology and past cultures really makes me feel accomplished. It has been a great couple of weeks and a great experience and I look forward to sharing more as it happens.

This is what it is like to be a museum GA.

I WANT IT

So my friend...Mental Three-Sixty introduced me to a website recently that is amazing. And I am sure that everyone else has already found it as usual, but is new to me. Geekologie promotes itself as being "a geek blog dedicated to the scientific study of gadgets, gizmos, and awesome. There are a lot of shiny new things out there, and Geekologie is dedicated to finding every last one of them for you." And they are pretty right on. Lets just say without this website my procrastination hours would not have been nearly what they are as of today.

The reason Mental pointed out the site to me was regarding a video clip. I work in a museum and Mental thought that this technology would be a great addition to our museum. I have to say that I agree and am willing just to buy one for myself as my Halloween costume from now until I die. You have to take a look:





I WANT ONE!!!!

What do you do as a Museum GA?

I am still asking myself the same question. I am really unsure as to how a museum works and at this point am just wondering around aimlessly until I am given some direction. It is just kind of caught me off guard to be thrown in a position that I have never held before and then just kind of told "There you go." Some of the things that I will be working on:

bringing the museum up to federal regulations

helping to clean up the public spaces to help them be more inviting and usable

redesigning the museum website (which I don't know how to do) as well as incorporating feedback space, a calendar, and a blog onto the site

Preparing and help design a new guest exhibit in preparation for an upcoming festival

Helping to market the museum

Helping to make the museum more hands on and kid friendly

Helping to organize and streamline the processes of the museum (very broad I know)


And those are just a few. There are 3 GA's out there total, but there hasn't been any updates done in around 30 years. Needless to say we have a lot to do and very little time to do it. Today alone I sat down and wrote out three pages of possible projects all of which are outside my own personal agendas that I have for being there. This experience is going to be one that is going to teach me a lot, but at the same time is going to be very, very time consuming.

I am really hoping that I can get my schedule down pat and start to plan out my days. At this point I am so scattered in so many directions that I don't see myself being very productive. I need to start scheduling time for studying and that just isn't there at the moment. I already have so much reading that I know that I am going to have to take it with me on our mini-vacation to Cedar Point this weekend. Ahh....to be a graduate student: They are paying for me to go to school but are gonna squeeze every pennies worth out of me in return.

Back to work!

Long Day

My posts are undoubtedly going to be very sparse, short, and often last minute until I get my new schedule under way. There are a lot of things that I would like to see on this blog, but we will see how much this semester is going to allow.

For the time being....my first day at the museum was...ok. I don't know if the jobs that I have scheduled at this time are in full use of my abilities but thing bigger and better opportunities will come. Luckily I will be able to incorporate my museum studies class assignments into this GA and will be able to better both sides of the spectrum. The museum is going to be a challenge for me in that I have been trying to get away from archaeology and focus on physical anthropology....but I will just have to strive to keep a strong focus. I gave my first tour today and lets just say it went ok. It was to 3 people from France with only one of which spoke English. On top of that I had to explain why it was that the U.S. Gov't removed the tribes from their land, moved them to Oklahoma, and what their lifestyles were like now. Needless to say, it was a much more loaded question with a very lengthy response that I tried to summarize as democratically as possible. I think it worked.

Enough of that for now, I have to get to work on the other museum related blogs and make sure everything is progressing on that front.

Wish me luck.