Transcript

Ask an Archaeologist: Unearthing Challenges in Archaeology

From ArchaeologyTV · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 59 min · 10,348 words · 74 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Ask an Archaeologist: Unearthing Challenges in Archaeology", an episode of ArchaeologyTV published August 20, 2025 (59 min, about 10,348 words). It mentions 10 people, works and ideas, including Florida Public Archaeology Network, Harvard Art Museums, John and Jen, Nashville Parthenon, Archaeological Institute of America.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Florida Public Archaeology Network, Archaeological Institute of America, Katie Petrolei, Sarah Ayers Riggsby
  2. – 10:00: Harvard Art Museums, Rachel Dewan, US Committee of the Blue Shield
  3. – 45:00: Harvard Art Museums
  4. – 50:00: NAGPRA

Notable quotes from "Ask an Archaeologist: Unearthing Challenges in Archaeology"

  • Website in the chat as well. and, let's introduce our panelists. So, first up is Katie Petrolei. She is the assistant director of the Nashville Parthonon.
    about Katie Petrolei · at
  • Have Sarah Ayers Riggsby, who is the Southeast and Southwest Regional Director at the Florida Public Archaeology Network. A fun fact about the Florida Archaeology Network is…
    about Florida Public Archaeology Network · at
  • Intro slide back on just for a sec just so we can introduce Rachel. finally, Rachel Dewan, who is executive director of the US Committee of the Blue Shield. The Committee of…
    about Rachel Dewan · at
  • Unique job in that I work with our the Egyptian artifacts that are in our care at the Harvard Art Museums where I work, but I am also in charge of all the learning at the…
    about Harvard Art Museums · at
  • Native American remains since 1990 and other cultural objects are protected by NAGPRA which is the Native American Graves protection repatriation act. and so it's I think the…
    about NAGPRA · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • John and Jen — Person · 2 mentions
  • Katie Petrolei — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Sarah Ayers Riggsby — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Awesome. Thank you, Katie. Next up, we have Sarah Ayers Riggsby, who is the Southeast and Southwest Regional Director at the Florida Public Archaeology Network. A fun fact about the Florida Archaeology Network is that.
  • Rachel Dewan — Person · 1 mention · first at

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

Places & events

Full transcript with timestamps

And if you're just joining us, you'll see we have a slide up here with a QR code for our uh first Lego League resource page. So, we at the AIA have created a page with common questions and common challenges. Um, a lot of questions that people have submitted to us for this webinar and also in other ways. Uh, so questions that we know some of you have. Um, and we have some other resources there. um things to read up on um other places to look um to think about how archaeologists around the world think about our field and our work um as well as some information about connecting with an archaeologist through Skype a scientist which is a partner organization that is great for connecting with scientists of all kinds not just archaeologists.

So we'll just take another 30 seconds. Um, I will show this slide again and you can find this page uh on our website as well. Um, please feel free to share where you're tuning in from, your team name, and how many people are watching with you. And I think um I'll just swap to our title slide so you can see who you're going to be hearing from in a little bit um while I uh I introduce um archaeology just a little bit. So, uh, what is archaeology? It's the study of people through the things they left behind. At least that's how I define it.

Um, others might do it slightly differently. A lot of the time we think of archaeology as only the study of ancient people, but it can be about more recent people, too. And we have a question that I think we'll get to about that a little bit later. So, broad strokes, I would say it's the study of people through the things they left behind. All right. So this uh webinar is sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America or the AIA. Um it is called Ask an Archaeologist Unearthing Challenges in Archaeology. And I'll just say a little bit about the AIA because you might find us useful in many other ways. Um we make archaeology happen. And uh we also find ways to connect people like you, people who are not professional archaeologists but are interested um with our work. We are North America's largest and oldest archaeological organization. We have over 150,000 members worldwide. We've been around for a really long time since

1879. We support all kinds of work in classrooms, in libraries, in museums, um, and in the field. And we have programs, local programs as well, local societies, we have publications for kids and adults, lots of different resources. Um, and there are other ways that you can use us to connect to excavations, to volunteer on or to work on, to site tours, to lectures, to archaeology fairs, and to your local archaeological community. Wow, I see so many smiley faces and hearts. Thank you for all of the love. Um, and I think now we can get started with our panel. So, um, uh, I know I put that slide up with the QR code. Um, we I'll we'll drop a link to our LEGO, uh, challenge page of our website in the chat as well. Um, and, uh, let's introduce our panelists. So, first up is Katie Petrolei. She is the assistant director of the Nashville Parthonon.

Um, did you know that the Nashville Parthonon is the world's only exact size replica of the ancient Parthonon in Athens? Um Katie, can you just say a bit about what brought you to archaeology and what is a favorite project or challenge you've tackled in your job or in the field? Thanks, Jen. Hi, everyone. I came to archaeology through the world of museums. Um, and so my love of museums as a kid led me to thinking about how objects ended up in museums. And my favorite project I've ever done was probably working at an excavation in Greece with legacy collections, like objects that were found a hundred years before I was even there and just needed someone to study them and catalog and look at them.

So I like the objects and the material culture side of archaeology. Awesome. Thank you, Katie. Next up, we have Sarah Ayers Riggsby, who is the Southeast and Southwest Regional Director at the Florida Public Archaeology Network. A fun fact about the Florida Archaeology Network is that they have regional centers throughout the whole state of Florida. Sarah, what brought you to archaeology and what is a favorite project or challenge that you've tackled in your job or in the field? Awesome. Thank you so much, Jen. Do you mind if I share my screen quickly?

Oh, no. Go ahead. Awesome. Thank you so much. So, I'm Sarah Ers Riggsby. I work for the Florida Public Archaeology Network. So, I know I saw a lot of you in the chat are from Florida. We are a statewide educational organization uh dedicated to uh preserving the conservation study and public understanding of Florida's archaeological heritage. So, that can be uh here you see us doing things like documenting shipwrecks. We're cleaning up historic cemeteries and we're also using ground penetrating radar to try and identify a cemetery site in the top left photo. Uh so these are our three missions and the fun fact, yes, we have regional centers uh across the state. So I'm the director for the southeast and southwest region. So I'm down here in South Florida like Miami, the Keys, crocodiles, the Everglades, and underwater archaeology. So, my background today is the San Pedro shipwreck, which is part of Florida's

Museums of the Sea. And the big challenge, uh, there's just a little bit about me, but the big challenge I wanted to talk to you all today about what we face here in Florida is what happens in the aftermath of hurricanes and what happens to our archaeological sites. So, you see here uh, in the top right a cemetery that's been uh, destroyed with trees falling on top of it. we see sand that's buried in archaeological site. Um in the bottom left we see the water line right that extends um partway uh up this archaeological site. So this is a big issue and we'll discuss today a little bit about how we use different technologies to try and learn more about the site. But maybe this is a challenge you guys might be interested in helping us solve. So thank you.

Awesome. Okay Sarah. Oh, let me pop our uh intro slide back on just for a sec just so we can um introduce Rachel. Uh finally, Rachel Dewan, who is executive director of the US Committee of the Blue Shield. The Committee of the Blue Shield is an organization that works to protect cultural heritage from the effects of war and natural disasters. Rachel, what brought you to archaeology and what is a favorite project or challenge that you have tackled? Yeah, I love this. Thanks, Jen. And thank you all for being here. Um, it's so cool to see such a big group of excited participants. I love archaeology and I love talking about it. So, this is awesome. I got into archaeology. I always loved history. I thought the stories of the past were amazing that people could be so far have lived so far away from when I lived and yet some stories be so similar. Um, and then the actual details of archaeology. I started

watching a show called Time Team, which is pretty old now, but some of you may have seen it. I think it's still on reruns, and it's almost like a three-day mini excavation. So, you get to see in a very short amount of time a few things that archaeologists do. And I just thought it was awesome, and I wanted to try it myself. So, I did like a one-day excavation in high school, loved it, and then just never really stopped from there. So I I do there are a few reasons I got into it but I think time team is probably number one which is pretty funny. Um and my favorite project or challenge I really love and still love which is surprising after all the years of putting into it um my doctoral work.

So when I was working in doing my PhD, I was looking at the problem or the challenge of what are these very miniature pots that the prehistoric Greeks, the people called the Menowans, why did they make so many mini pots, what were they used for? And I got to travel around to different sites on the island of Cree. And one of the reasons I really loved it was that um I got to pull from all sorts of data sets. I got to contextualize everything. We'll talk about context in archaeology and sort of use many different aspects of archaeological study to try and understand um what these mini pots were used for.

Plus, they're really cute and everyone loves miniatures, so it was a lot of fun. Really cute. Thank you, Rachel. Um and I'll just tell you who I am since I've been introducing everybody else. Um my name is Jen. I'm Jen Tham. I'm an Egyptologist. That means that I am an archaeologist who specializes in ancient Egypt. And as you probably already gathered, there are so many different types of work that you can do as an archaeologist. And one of the things that you can do is you can work in a museum. I have a kind of unique job in that I work with our um the the Egyptian artifacts that are in our care at the Harvard Art Museums where I work, but I am also in charge of all the learning at the museum. So my niche really is how do people learn about themselves and about the past from the things that people left behind. So I will stop sharing now so you can see all of our beautiful faces. Um and we are

going to turn to some of the common questions that you submitted in advance. So thank you so much for doing that. Um we are going to try to get to as many questions as we can from the ones you submitted. Um and a lot of you submitted similar ones. So, we are um going to uh try to get to the most popular ones first as well as ones that we find really cool. Okay. So, first question is for Katie. Um how is archaeology different from paleontology and anthropology? I'm a great one to answer this question. I used to work in a dinosaur exhibit even though I'm an archaeology person.

So, paleontology is all about fossils and fossils are clues that help us learn about the past, but way way back. So, before humans, we're talking like the messoic era, 252 to 66 million years ago. Anthropology is kind of the big overall term. It's also a clothing store, right? But anthropology is about humans and thinking about things like how society develops. That's also archaeology. Archaeology really focuses on the material culture like the stuff, the structures, the buildings, the houses, the forks that people use, the belts on their belt loops. So the things that people left behind is really where archaeology kind of specializes within anthropology. Awesome.

I was actually an anthropology major in college and that's how I found archaeology is because I wanted more anthropology classes and I only discovered anthropology and archaeology in college. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Um, all right. Thanks for answering that question, Katie. I'll actually take the next one. Um, because this is something I mentioned earlier, which is, is there a time threshold for what archaeologists consider to be the past? And is there a minimum age for a site or artifact to qualify? My answer for that um and others can feel free to chime in and be no because um we're really studying people which is what anthropology as a whole does anyway um but archaeology is studying people through things the things they left behind and um sometimes the questions that we have about people are not about ancient people. I'll give you a good example. I have some friends who have

for a long time worked um on uh an island in the Caribbean called Monserat. And Monzerat is being studied by archaeologists because it's being eaten by a volcano. But the the objects that they are studying are to try to understand how the island was used by people before it gets totally uh covered in lava. And those objects are from like the 1980s. So they are digging up like or keeping records of people's garages with things like frozen in time and a car still in the garage that never left and things like that. So that is also archaeology. So there isn't a threshold.

Although many of us will think of archaeology as the deep past. Um but this also means that if you live in a place where humans haven't been there for very long or humans haven't left too many archaeological traces for very long, it doesn't matter. Can still be a great set of archaeology. Um if anyone else would like to chime in, feel free if you have your own favorite modern archaeology example. Otherwise, I'll toss it to Rachel for our next question if we're good. Okay, Rachel, we're going to start to talk about some of the questions you all had about our education, our career paths. Um, Rachel, what did you study in school in order to become an archaeologist?

Yeah, so there are a few different pathways to become an archaeologist. And I Jen just touched on this. You don't have to know that you are going to go into archaeology when you start school or post-secary school. um especially because archaeology is a discipline under the larger discipline of anthropology. So you might hear people use those terms interchangeably. Technically, anthropology is the study of humans. And that's very broad, right? Archaeology is the study of humans through material culture, through through things, through objects. And if you get into anthropology, you can then choose to sort of specialize in archaeology. So, a lot of people get a degree or get um education in anthropology.

Some schools do have specific archaeology programs. And for me personally, that's what I did. My undergrad degree is actually in very specifically, unusually specifically, I should say, Neareastern and classical archaeology. Um, which it is rare to have an undergrad so specific, but I kind of knew what I wanted and in my second year, I think chose that very specific u major. But you can go and do a degree in anthropology and then do a a graduate degree in archaeology specifically or have an undergrad in anthropology or a related field and then work in the archaeological sector. So there are a few ways as Katie mentioned you can get into museums. You could do a degree in museum studies and then sort of find your way into the archaeological world. So there are different pathways.

You're not super limited. But I just wanted everyone to know that if people use the term anthropology, how is that related to archaeology and how are these other sort of facets of the field related? They are all related, but archaeology is a very specific niche. And actually Rachel, what you remind me of is some of those like unexpected pathways. Some people go and study a science in school and then end up working with archaeologists or as a certain type of archaeologist. So for example, bioarchchaeologist is a person who studies um biological specimens and of and mostly um human remains in the past and they will often have been like a biology major or something like that.

Um we also have chemists who work in archaeology or people who are chemistry majors and then go into some of the more scientific or like hard science applications for archaeology I should say. So um many many different pathways. Um Katie, my next question is for you or actually this is not my next question. This is a a popular question that everyone submitted. Um, what are some requirements to become an archaeologist? Generally, we're not just talking about school. Um, and what are some common jobs or careers that archaeologists can have after graduating college?

Yeah, I think you guys already covered a lot of the the basics of, you know, most archaeologists will get an undergraduate degree. Um, I thought I would really emphasize that a lot of archaeologists do go on to get a master's or a doctoral degree, um, and write a dissertation kind of on a focused chosen subject that they're super passionate about. Um, but a lot of folks also have experience in a field school and this can be a huge obstacle because it often involves traveling somewhere super far. Um, but I also think there's lots of local opportunities and Sarah may have, you know, examples of this, too. But I know in Nashville there's local digs you can volunteer on. There's field schools you can attend. So, most people do have some sort of experience working outside, trying digging, and kind of learning the process of an excavation. Um, and then also another big thing to be an archaeologist, I

think you need to be a really good reader and writer. There's a lot of research that goes into archaeology and um, if you and you need to publish and share the thoughts that you are thinking about the objects, the artifacts that you're finding. Um, some of the soft skills involved. I think anyone on an archaeological dig um they have to be a team player. Archaeology is a big group project and so um you're working with a bunch of people. It's usually quite hot out. It's long days. Um it's physical work, it's mental work. There's a lot of thinking and discussion that happens. And so things like observation skills, reading and writing skills, public speaking and communication skills, those are all things that are really important requirements for an archaeologist.

And those skills are transferable. So even if you decide you're not going to be someone maybe a traditional archaeologist working as a professor and digging in the summers, there's tons of careers where those skills can be really strong aspects um to bring into your field. And um I'm a great example of someone who works in the the museum world. Um but you can go into architecture, historic preservation. Um there's a lot of different things you can do with an archaeology degree. Things like cultural resource management. You can work in construction and nonprofits, um humanities, and even steam science technology engineering arts, and math. Those fields often use skills built in the humanities like archaeology. Awesome.

Well, I'm actually gonna start to look at some of our questions that have to do with how we actually work because I see some similar ones coming in the chat. So, just um to recap, we are going to be uh trying to answer as many of the questions that were common questions that people submitted in advance in order to um make the most of our hour together. And also, I just want to remind everyone because I see some comments about this too, this is being recorded and it will be posted online. So, if your team or some of uh your students if you're a um a coach cannot make it, they can watch this later.

Don't worry. So, let's talk a little bit about our work um in terms of like like fieldwork. So, Rachel, where do archaeologists work? Yeah, so this is a really common question because I think some people think we're limited to specific countries or specific areas, but archaeologists literally work everywhere in the world. There is archaeology everywhere. And as Jen touched on, you know, the there's no real time period that we study. You can be studying things that recently happened and they're still considered archaeology, which means that there's material culture from humans all over the world.

So I think the submission of this question maybe people are kind of asking, oh, which countries do you work in or is there a specific environment? But there really isn't. There are archaeologists who study everything from ancient Egypt, like I've been seeing in the comments, which is a popular one, to modern garbage deposits, you know. So, um, there's really not that much limit to it, which makes archaeology so exciting, right? There's so much that we can learn and so many different contexts we can learn from. Yeah. The joke about archaeologists is that we love to go through people's trash. You can learn so much about archae or about people through their trash. Um, just depends on like this is another skill I feel like what what you know what makes a good archaeologist, what kind of person should become an archaeologist? A person who doesn't mind getting dirty, I would say as well. Um, so maybe we'll see some uh some

inventions uh for the contest that have to do with keeping us clean. I would need that. I always get so muddy and I know. Um Katie, uh how did you select a place to research or excavate? Um before people had drones and all kinds of other technology, what did they use? Yeah, I mean it it can really depend. Um I've worked at sites where ancient ruins are just visible. So you know there's stuff to find and you can form questions about what you what you think is happening and then you dig to kind of understand that bigger qu question about what was happening in this area at this time frame and you start to find um artifacts that help you build a stronger picture of those ruins that are still visible. Um but projects near where I used to work also used newer technologies like ground penetrating radar. Um and that helps you kind of understand the densities of what is underground. You can't see it with your

eyes but using technology you can. And so you might come up with a hypothesis that oh okay there's something really dense is here and it turns at a right angle. This could be a corner of a room or a building or an entire giant structure. So, it kind of gives you ideas about there's more to discover in this place and it it gives you hints where you might want to start an excavation. Um, others even famously use satellite imagery and can discover sites from using satellites out in space. So, there's a lot of different options um from as simple as you can see it to you can use amazing technologies to get a better picture of where you might start digging.

I think Katie, what this reminds me of is like this common misconception that we're always coming up against, which is that we don't just like randomly go somewhere and decide to dig a hole. We actually don't dig holes at all. We're very organized. We have straight sides of our trenches. But we are always making an informed decision to excavate. And sometimes archaeology is not excavating. sometimes what we call survey. We're walking around and trying to understand people through the things they left behind that pop up on someone's farm that are on the ground on the surface. We can learn a lot about what's under the ground from what's on top of the ground or what we can see from the air as you said. And another one I'll add to your list is Oh, sorry.

Go ahead. I was just to say the part two answers once you do all that prep work, then the glamorous work of filing for permits and waiting months and months for answers because there's so many people interested in learning more about the past. So, it's not like you see something and you go start digging. That is, you know, the pre-work before the main work even begins. And then permissions and assembling a team and finding funding, you know, all those things come after you have those hints about where you might want to work.

And this um there's really two key aspects here. One of which you you brought up so beautifully that that have to do with the people involved. One um thing is that sometimes they just need to talk to people who live nearby. Like they might know maybe someone found something in their yard and they say, "I think there might be a site in my backyard, something like this." But the other is if you're working in a foreign location um no matter what what your home country is and what the foreign location is there is a cooperation that needs to happen between you and your team who are coming be you know you basically need to have very good relationships between people and often with governments in order to be permitted to be allowed to excavate in those places or to do survey in those places. So there's a lot of cooperation between um people as well.

Can I say on that note? Yeah. Especially I actually am currently in Alaska of all places. That's a whole other story. Um but my husband does a lot of archaeology work here and all the archaeological work that takes place in the state is really important to collaborate with the indigenous people whose land we're working on. And that's true of anywhere that there's indigenous people. So whenever there's a project, that collaboration and that partnership is really should be at the forefront of the project's goals. Yeah. And there um we sort of touched on this, so I'm just going to skip ahead a couple and then we'll come back to Sarah because I haven't asked you a question yet, Sarah. Um how are radar and andor satellites used in archaeology?

Yes. So I talked a little bit before about hurricanes. So, one of the reasons we use a lot of satellite imagery is to actually help us uh look at damage um after a storm. So, this is after Hurricane Ian. Uh and what you see here is this is actually not an archaeological site, but this is a bridge that was destroyed, right? So, how can we get to the archaeological site if the bridge was destroyed um during the storm? So, then we have to wait for the bridge to be repaired. So, um, sites like this, this is in the US, uh, Noah, uh, does a lot of what they call flyovers in the aftermath of the storms. You can get an idea of the conditions on the ground. Um, and I also wanted to, I did see someone asked about the communications uh, in the chat. And um the question from Mega was asking about how we communicate with each other in remote places. But even in places uh that are pretty developed in South

Florida, if we have a major disaster impact like this, that's going to impact things like cell towers, internet, power. So that means we might be going back to other types of communication like we might have to, you know, go out and physically find someone to give them information. We might have to schedule a time to meet with them. we don't we might not have access to some of the technology that uh we might be dependent on in other areas. Um and then prior to storms we also use uh technology like lidar which is essentially it's really cool. It's shooting light uh lasers from planes to look at elevation. Um and what you're seeing in this slide is an area I work in a lot uh in Jupiter, Florida. So Jupiter the place in Florida. Sadly, not Jupiter, the planet. That would be pretty cool, but we're not there yet.

Um, and this shows uh how high something is, and that can give us an idea of when it might be impacted by different types of storms or by flooding. So, here in Florida, um things like flooding and climate change uh and increased storm severity are really big problems both for the people that live here now and also our archaeological sites. So we can use these tools to try and figure out um before an event like that we can figure out the risk level and then after this type of event um we can use data like satellite imagery to help us prioritize where we need to go to document um impacts from some of these storms.

Awesome. And just uh because I saw somebody asked what does LAR stand for? Light detection and ranging. Okay. So, um, let's talk about some of the other tools that archaeologists use in their work. Katie, can you give us any other examples of tools that archaeologists use in their work? Yeah, I mean, how cool is using sound and light, like Sarah just said, as a tool? But it really is. And when you're on a dig site, you also have a little more basic tools. things like a notebook and a pencil to be recording observations, making drawings to scale, things like rulers, um measuring sticks, things that you're using to help you record your observations. You may also use a tablet or a laptop. There's even been apps developed. One of them is called IDIG that you can input that data um to help you visualize your information and record information. Um GPS is a common tool and things like a total station that will help you measure

where you found something in space and time sort of like it'll tell you what exact level it is. Um and then the digging tools, things like a tel, a pick. Um I've even used like toothpick and skewers for tiny finds. We will go as small as needed to carefully and really um protect the artifacts that we're finding as we're digging them. I've used cake brooms, which are sadly not cake. It's just a small short broom. Um and things like paint brushes to sweep off that context because then you photograph it. So, you're using cameras as a way to record images, not just observations. Um, I'd also say that other tools, maybe a little more abstract thinking, but publications that have been about your site or previous records are really important tools to have read and reviewed as you prepare for an excavation. So, from anything from sound and light as a tool to, you know, a toothbrush as a tool, um, it

you'll find those on dig sites. They change, you know, depending on where we are. You know, if we're at the top of the top soil, what we call it, like we probably don't have to be as delicate with a toothbrush or, you know, a a wooden um skewer or something yet. We might use a bigger tool and then as we go, as we have an idea that we're uncovering something, we are trying to be as careful as possible. Any others want to throw out their favorite tool or another tool that we use in our technology? My favorite tool is the dental pick because it gets very fine. It's just what they use on your teeth and you pick away the dirt to uncover very fragile objects. So that's once you get down into cultural levels and you're dealing right with the artifacts. But I love it.

It's very satisfying. Sarah, can I put you on the spot? Are there any like special underwater archaeology tools that you can talk about? Yeah, I think that um so a big problem with underwater archaeology or something that might be a little different than terrestrial archaeology is in terrestrial archaeology once you move the soil or the sand out of the way it kind of just stays where it is unless you're working in maybe a sandstorm. Uh but underwater it's like every day basically is a sandstorm. So we have to use um like a little vacuum type tool to actually suck up the sediment or the silt as we're excavating. Um, and then that typically could be brought up to like topside to a boat um where people on the boat will actually um screen the rest of the dirt. Um, so that's one thing that we might use that's a little bit different.

Awesome. I've never done underwater archaeology. It seems so cool. But don't you have to be a certified diver to do it? Is that true? It's a rumor I've heard. Yes, you have to be a certified diver. And I actually I'm trained as a terrestrial archaeologist. Uh, but I did get uh my I'm an a scientific diver now with my university because of all the work that FPEN does. Uh, but we have uh some really phenomenal underwater archaeologists that work uh for our offices across the state. So cool. Rachel, you're unmuted. Is that because you'd like to offer a Oh, no.

No. I wish I was an underwater archaeologist. Um, your background. Close enough. Perfect. There we go. Um, let's just uh and I can throw this out to anyone, but I'll just start with Katie. What do you feel is the most exciting area of research in archaeology at the moment? Oo. Um, something that really excites me is thinking about ancient color. And partly because there's new technology used. It's called PXRF, portable X-ray fluoresence. And if you think about it big picture, it's a combination of chemistry, geology, and archaeology. So these sciences coming together to learn more about the artistic choices that people made in the past. And so you're figuring out what traces of elements are on the surface of an artifact. Then you're understanding what those elements, how they combine to make a mineral and then how that mineral would be ground up and created to make paint that was used to decorate and finish

anything from, you know, pottery to sculpture to, you know, steely to like just elements of daily life in ancient times. And I think it really helps us picture the past. In my case, it helps me picture ancient Greece as a vibrant and colorful place. Um, and that really changes your perspective about life 2,000 some years ago. So, I mean to me the technology about ancient color is phenomenal and fascinating and I I could talk about it all day. Cool. Um, does anyone else want to offer a uh an exciting area of research in archaeology at the moment?

I just want to Oh, I'm sorry. I just want to really um build on what Rachel said earlier about collaborating with descendant communities. So I think um archaeology uh within the past couple of generations has really shifted in our focus. we um at least in the United States a lot of archaeology sort of happened uh it was looking it was kind of coming from the scientific heritage of categorizing uh different things and different societies um and now archaeology is viewed as more collaborative and that's leading to archaeologists being able to work with descendant communities and formulate um not only uh research questions that are more interesting and have a lot more potential to collaborate to the discipline, but also um we are hope, you know, ideally we're working with indigenous communities to answer questions that they're interested in answering. You know, so the archaeology should always be happening um for

someone who is not you, right? If you're the only person that's interested in your work, you're probably doing something wrong. You should have uh community involvement. Awesome. It's a great reminder because I I just think because archaeology is like so in the public eye, we think we're it's like who are we doing it for? We're doing it for all of us, but we there's, you know, everybody needs to be able to have an ethical say in it. Um, we have some more specific questions, then we're going to get to some questions about challenges. And just to remind everyone, um, we do have a list of challenges that we already compiled on our website on the LEGO challenge page. So, please have a look at that. Um, Rachel, what can artifacts tell us about food or what people ate in the ancient world?

Yeah. So, there are a number of different ways and it depends on the artifact. I mean, sometimes we're super lucky. Some of you may know the site of Pompei in Italy that was covered by the ash of a volcano. You know, we found like loaves of bread at Pompei, which is incredible. And that's just super lucky. We can't bank on doing that in every archaeological site. I wish. So sometimes um we're able to actually use science things like chemistry to find residue on the side of pottery that may have held different food types. So I know on some of the digs I've been on um in Greece on the island of Cree, there's a lot of questions about can is there enough here that we could test the residue inside this pot and see exactly what they were making. Sometimes it's more the shape of the pot and what could it have held or what could this piece of pottery been used for to cook, to store, all those sorts of things. And we're

comparing the shapes of pots across different sites. And then sometimes we can even take those pots or other objects and see if we have any representations of them in art. Um, sometimes we have wall paintings or miniature paintings or sculptures, anything else, representations that show what food might have been used and how it might have been held. Um, so there's sort of the scientific side that we can sometimes test and actually try and find some hard data for that stuff. Uh, sometimes we're finding bones of animals that might have been cooked. Um, and that's again a whole other side of the hard sciences. or sometimes we're comparing to artistic representations or studying the pots themselves as um as an art form. Does anyone else have any other ways that they've found food? Oh, I did. Oh, I did want to mention seeds.

That was another thing. I I found seeds inside pots, which is always super exciting for me. Yeah. One thing that I was thinking of as you were talking about like comparing pots to representations of pots is we also sometimes look at modern examples where people are doing the same thing with a pot now. So a good example of this in um is in uh ancient Nubia. Communal beer drinking with straws out of one pot is something that people still do. So we know a lot about or we think we know how people were using certain vessels in the past because people are still doing some of the same traditions with the same shapes of vessels um even though the technology may have changed um now. So that's another way. I don't know if anyone else can think of one. Um yeah, I I worked in Jordan for a season and um there was a professor on that project who was studying cooking ovens and how modern Bedawin were using ovens and

cooking their food and how that might compare to the ovens that we were finding from 3,000 years ago. So yeah, lots of cool ethnographic comparisons like that. I always love that we're not so different from the people in the past. I think that would be like my number one thing other than well we don't dig holes. We don't work with fossils. Aliens did not build the pyramids. Other than those three, it would be we're not so different from the people of the past. Um and that's why archaeology doesn't have a time limit.

We're studying people. Full stop. Um and on that note, I would love to answer this question that we got um from several people, which is how do we know how old something is? So um there's two basic types of dating in archaeology. One is relative dating. this is older than that or this is younger than that but we can't say exactly how or when. Um and the other is called absolute dating like where you have a year or a range of years is even I think you could consider to be absolute dating and um it depends on what the thing is. So if it's a coin and it has a year on it we can be pretty sure it was made that year that's pretty easy. But other ones um sometimes we're comparing artifacts that were the same type of thing that has changed over time. A classic example of this that they teach you in archaeology in classes is Coke bottles. So Coca-Cola bottles are they all the same purpose. They hold

Coca-Cola. But if you looked at a glass Coca-Cola bottle from like the 1950s and a uh a tin can from now, you know they did the same thing, but you can tell which one is more modern than the other. So things change style over time, and that can tell us something about when it was from. Another way is if you find something that can't be dated in itself, but you can find it with something very closely related and Rachel mentioned context earlier in the same layer right next to something that can be dated very absolutely then you can speculate with that relationship and then as Rachel was saying about like you know you can test the object itself there are scientific ways to do dating. One is carbon dating.

Um although you get a range of dates when you carbon date sometimes you get confused by the results so it's not an absolute science. Um you can also do tree ring dating which is called dendrochronology if the object is wood. Um and there are other um technologies that can help us get closer from a molecular or scientific level at dating. Um any other thoughts on dating before we move to some other challenges? I would just add that sometimes you may want to try a certain type of dating but things like funding and permits may be just not a realistic option. And so, oh man, if if we could wave a magic wand, we might be able to do even more testing on specific objects, but you know, you may not get permission from someone to do um some absolute dating because, you know, that could be a government or a tribe. There may be reasons why you don't date something and then you can do your best with research and figuring out

some relative dating. So sometimes just because we can, we still don't even. But that's why there's multiple options you can apply to even one artifact. Such a good point, Katie. And I actually just had to do this myself. We have two wooden objects at the Harvard Art Museums. I do not think they are authentic and I can't pay for theating or I don't want to like there are other things we can direct those funds towards. So instead, I'm trying to do by consensus. I've been sharing there's a lot of collaboration archaeology been sharing images of them and even presenting about them at conferences with other Egyptologists and saying do you think these are real like give me your 10 your top 10 reasons why or why not and um sometimes for consensus could be enough or we can say well with a certain level of certainty you know um let's talk a little bit about funding actually Rachel in your opinion why do

archaeologists struggle with fundraising I think in my experience and sort of talking to people I think often it's trying to expl explain what that funding is going to be used for. All the many, many facets of an archaeological project. I don't think people fully understand that so much research, so much scientific investigation goes into a single project and that it can take so long. That's the other thing that you can't just go and dig in a frenzy for a month and you're done. You know, it often takes many years, many summers.

You're studying, you're publishing, there are many people involved. So I think the number one thing I'd say is sort of the scale. I don't think people understand the the large scale that archaeology takes as a science. And then number two, sometimes people will say things like, well, it's really old. Like why does that matter exactly? You know, trying to explain to current the current public why the past matters so much to the present. And obviously we all know that it does. We'll speak more to that um in the next few minutes, but um really sort of having that outreach and that community engagement about why this is so important to the lives of people today as well.

Everyone else have funding experience. Fundraising is always a tricky one. And then also like the element of surprise sometimes archaeology has to happen which relates to my next question which is for Sarah. If land needs to be used for construction and something of archaeological importance is found during that process, what do you do? Yes. So, that's a great question, Jen. And I want to say we have people from so many different countries. So, this is really going to vary a little bit depending on what country you're living in. So, here in the United States and what the rules of your country are, right? So here in the United States if we uh so typically uh we are going to be doing archaeology because a site uh there's like construction that's about to happen and it is maybe a road improvement and because it involves federal funding so funding from the US government that is going to mean that

archaeologists have to go and see if something is there before the road uh can be built right they have to make sure there's impacts to historic sites, archaeological sites, or uh something like an endangered species before they go and do that. So, here in the United States, there's no blanket protection for archaeological sites. So, that means if you have a site on private land and there's no uh let's say you want to put a pool in your backyard, you know, here in Florida, people love their pools. So, if you're here and it's you're in the city of Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale has a historic preservation ordinance.

So, if you're in an archaeologically sensitive area in Fort Lauderdale trying to build your pool, you're going to have to get an archaeologist in there first to make sure that there's nothing there. And then if you find something while you're building that pool, um it has to be thoroughly documented by an archaeological team and then they present their uh findings to uh the city. Uh in that case, um it doesn't mean you can't have your pool. It just means that there are a lot of uh additional steps that are going to happen in between you wanting the pool and the final construction date of the pool. Um but unfortunately uh because there's no blanket protections that means other cities, other municipalities uh you might be able to put that pool in uh and nothing uh even if you find something of perhaps archaeological significance, you might not even be required to report it. Um so that is so

it really depends on on where you are. Um the only thing in Florida that is uh does have blanket protections are human remains. So if you are digging anywhere in the state of Florida and you find uh human remains, they are protected uh by a law, a state law called chapter 872. Um but other than that uh that's the only thing that's kind of universally protected here. So I would encourage anyone as we think about projects um even just compiling uh different laws like geospatial databases something like that is uh could be potentially be really helpful for uh not only archaeologists but also uh land owners or um construction workers in different areas.

Sarah, this is just another great reminder that in so many places and in so many ways the people of the past and the people of the present intersect and how we have to, you know, be respectful of both and and really think about how we we can um layer those onto each other and how they can sort of work together. I'll just answer a related question um from our list because you mentioned human remains. Um, someone asked why is it okay to dig up ancient Egyptian remains but not okay to dig up Native American remains? And the my answer is it's also not okay to dig up uh ancient Egyptian remains. Um, depending um so Native American uh remains since 1990 uh and other cultural objects are protected by um NAGPRA which is the Native American Graves uh protection repatriation act. Um and so it's I think uh the person who asked this question probably knows about NAGPRA. I encourage you all to look it up. But um in that's

in a a US um law, but uh around the world um people do not uh seem to treat ancient Egyptian and other uh types of uh remains from people from other parts of the world. Um certainly in US museums with the same um I would say respect or in the same way. Um, for me personally as an Egyptologist, I do not think that we should ever be displaying the mummified bodies of ancient people as if they were objects. And the thing is that a lot of the things we used to do in archaeology 100 years ago or more, we would never do now. Same thing with museums, things we would never do that were done. And I think we have a responsibility to correct for those past practices by talking about why we wouldn't do them anymore. So, I personally, if there were uh the mummified body of an ancient Egyptian person at our museum, which there isn't, I would not put that person's body on display, but I would want to talk about

the fact that they are here and why I don't agree with that. And the most important thing in that area for me is I I just want to think about the ancient perspective and this is for any culture. If you know the name of the person whose body you are looking at or whose body is at the museum, you should use it. You It's one way of remembering that they were actually a person. Um I don't know if anyone else wants to weigh in on that, but often we know the names of ancient Egyptian people and we know that they wanted to be remembered by name as a matter of respect. That is the least that we can do for them. Um so anyone else otherwise I'll pop to our next question. I would just add that I think it's that's a great example to folks who you know maybe don't know an archaeologist or don't encounter archaeology in their everyday lives to really show how even the field of archaeology has changed in the past you

know and that's just one example but archaeology is changing museums are changing and so you know it's exciting to think about what the field will look like a hundred years from now thinking back to how different it is from a hundred years ago. Like new technology, new best practices. We're always kind of thinking more about how we can tell the story of the past. And Jen, that is such a great example and a great question to really illustrate that. Yeah, I loved that question. And speaking of questions that I love, I'm going to toss some of these out that you here on our panel said you really wanted to answer. So Rachel, I'll start with you. It seems like archaeologists deal with a ton of data. How do you manage it and share it with other experts?

Yeah, and I've seen even a few questions today about this. And I think something that's really important when it comes to data is that data needs to be interpreted. And so we do collect a ton of data. Different experts on a project will be collecting their own data. Everything from measurements in the field to photographs to measuring pots or um the types of bones they have. And each person is going to sort of sort that data in their own way. Lots of databases, lots of software, lots of notetaking, but it's not like we can just put that data. Usually, we don't usually just put it out there for anyone to to see. We actually use that data to to write the story of the people who created it or the people that were studying. So, part of a project is that you're out in the field, you're collecting the data, you're studying the data, and then you're interpreting the data. And that's why it's so important

to um put out publications, put out reports, to write. As Katie mentioned, writing and reading is so um seinal to archaeology. So you actually have to make sense of those numbers. Um and so it's great to have the data. We always want to have information, but it's not enough just to have the info. We want to sort of interpret and process it in order to make sense of it. A related question that we had was about like how do we share this information with people, but also how do we convince non-archchaeologists to care about archaeology, to care about this information? I mean, the AIA is a great example of this. Like we share so much.

We we want people to read these things, but um does anyone have a um a favorite reason or way to convince non-archchaeologists to care about archaeology, to share this information and your love for archaeology? Yeah, I for me when I think about some of the problems we're currently facing, these are problems that societies have faced before. Whether it is uh dealing with flooding when people were adjusting to mo the modern climate from the last ice age uh here in Florida, that meant a lot of really significant change. So people essentially start terraforming the Everglades and we see people moving inland, right? So we have uh very resilient societies. Um in uh coastal Ecuador, they're using a lot of ter uh terracing to maximize their uh essentially how they uh can farm um in the area. So I think when we think about archaeology, we have a real um ability to use uh what kinds of things people

were doing in the past to really inform um how we can solve modern problems. Did you want to answer that too? You had unmuted before. I think Sarah said it much better than I could have ever. All right. Well, it is um about five minutes to the hour. Um, and I do want to share a little more information, but let's see if we can throw out one more um question that u maybe anyone can answer. Um, and remember, we do have a list of challenges that we've already compiled um on the AIA website. Um, how about this one? What does everyone think archaeology will look like in the future?

I think I mean this is a tricky thing. Um but as we were talking about a minute ago, thinking about how much has changed in the past. Um what really excites me about the future of archaeology is thinking about how new technologies can be developed to learn even more to really like dig even deeper for the terrible pun about the things that we are discovering or are in our museums already. Um, you know, there's like new technology with visible induced luminescence, VIL, that is uncovering even more about the, you know, the paint and decoration on things like ancient statues. So, it excites me to think about, okay, what what new technologies will be developed that we can apply to what we thought we knew about the past?

And really, it to me, it just always like comes back to that history books are not closed. archaeology. You know, there's a there's so much work to be done now and in the future in archaeology. Awesome answer, Katie. Does anyone else want to weigh in on that future of archaeology? Yeah, I was just going to say I think I think archaeology can only broaden, you know, I think it started as a more narrow let's find all the pretty things and the treasures and and research the the kings and the queens and and we've really brought into let's learn about people as a whole and we're getting even more inclusive, you know, let's include more communities, let's partner with more people. So, I think that's a really exciting part of archaeology that we can only um get bigger from here. And I do get asked a lot, what are you finding? Hasn't everything already been found? And that's no. There's so much more to find.

There's people. There are always going to be people on the earth. So, there's always going to be things that people create to find and to learn about. Really, not even finding. We just need to learn about it. There's always going to be questions. Really? Exactly. More question. Sharon, do you want to answer this question? Like, where do I see archaeology going in the future? I definitely think um increased uh community engagement. I see someone said uh robot archaeologists with robot, but maybe I saw um in some places they're using like exoskeleton suits to help people lift things. So, I would not be opposed to a super cool suit that would help me dig my shovel test faster. Um but I definitely think uh archaeology is a really um interdisciplinary and multid-disciplinary field. So any any kind of tool that's going to help foster collaboration both across like geographic regions, across people with

different cultural backgrounds, um across uh you know uh different um countries. I think um that is where I see archaeology um headed towards is that increased collaboration. So less focusing on one uh here's like one person and all the stuff they dug up and more on like hey here's like a team of people that's working on these different aspects to try and tell the whole story of this previous culture and um the robots comment also I just want to bring it back to like the humanness of archaeology like there may be some things that technology can help us with but there are also some things that are really very human about understanding the human past and there has to be a human element to it in my opinion. Um so we're not going to be fully replaced by robots in the future.

I am just going to share a couple uh slides um to remind everybody about some of our resources. So, um, again, we have a whole page dedicated to this challenge, uh, including a list of common challenges and questions that have been asked and the recording of this webinar will go on that page. Um, and some other resources, too. I did see someone asked about what to read next. Um, our website has some of those resources as well, not just on this page, but on other parts of our website. Um, and speaking of reading, um, we have, um, a couple ways to, um, get, uh, into archaeology, uh, magazine. Um, we have a special on right now for a bundle if you, uh, can receive shipping to the US, but never fear if you can't, you can also access Archaeology Magazine digitally. Um, and we have a special for that right now in honor of this challenge as well. Um, and then one other thing that you all might

be interested in, which is that we have a build your own monument contest golden brick edition. Um, so, uh, this contest is from the end of September through the middle of October and the winner gets a one-year AIA membership. Um, so visit, um, our website for details on that. um for in in celebration of International Archaeology Day. I want to again thank all of our panelists. Let me put up this slide so you remember who they are. And um thank you for joining us and thank you again to the AIA for their sponsorship.

Have a great day everyone.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Ask an Archaeologist: Unearthing Challenges in Archaeology"?

In order: 0:00 Florida Public Archaeology Network, Archaeological Institute of America, Katie Petrolei, Sarah Ayers Riggsby; 5:00 Harvard Art Museums, Rachel Dewan, US Committee of the Blue Shield; 40:00 Harvard Art Museums; 45:00 NAGPRA.

What is mentioned in this ArchaeologyTV episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Florida Public Archaeology Network, Harvard Art Museums, John and Jen, Nashville Parthenon, Archaeological Institute of America, Katie Petrolei. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Ask an Archaeologist: Unearthing Challenges in Archaeology"?

The episode runs 59 min; the transcript is about 10,348 words in 74 timestamped sections.

More from ArchaeologyTV

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.