All my posts related to archaeology can be found here.
There are a number of fields that examine aspects of ancient plants. Sometimes the terminology gets a bit confusing so this short post will walk you through the background of some terms and what they actually mean.
Like this:Like Loading…
Earlier this month I posted on Facebook and Instagram that I was giving a talk at the ‘Archaeology of the Night’ symposium at this year’s Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Orlando, Florida. One of my readers, Wolfgang Alders, asked on Facebook, “What is the archaeology of the night?” Fair question! This post tells you what the...
This post is part of Blogging Carnival put forth by Doug Rocks-Macqueen of Doug’s Archaeology. What is a blogging carnival? To quote Doug, “…it is when a host blog chooses a topic and then puts out a call for submission to other bloggers asking them to participate in the carnival.” Participants will then send the link to their post to the host and after the deadline, the host...
Oman is currently a hotspot for travellers. It’s also a place that is receiving increasing attention by archaeologists. Oman features a stunning landscape, which includes an expansive sand dune desert, a myriad of wadis (intermittent rivers), numerous mountainous outcrops, a lengthy coastline, and more. Amidst these natural wonders, humans have been building permanent structures in the...
One of the most frequent questions that I get from undergraduate archaeology majors is some variant of ‘How did you get to where you are now?’ This is a valid question as every archaeologist has a different story and career trajectory. That being said, I think what most undergraduates are really asking is ‘What can I do now, as an undergraduate, to become an archaeologist...
Mummies, mole people, and cursed mysterious artifacts. Yes, archaeology has its fair share of Hollywood created horrors. For the most part, they’re quite entertaining, but if you want to know what really scares archaeologists, keep reading.
Like this:Like Loading…
This past summer the 6th International Anthracology Meeting (anthraco2015) was held in Freiburg, Germany. The meeting was jointly organized by the Department of Geobotany, Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, and the Tree-ring Lab of Baden-Wuerttemburg State Office for Cultural Heritage. This meeting is held every four years (or so) and I was excited that the location and timing allowed...
In August 2015, I flew back to Boston to participate in a week-long wood anatomy and archaeological charcoal identification workshop at Boston University. The course was generously put on by Dr. John (Mac) Marston and Boston University’s Environmental Archaeology Lab (EAL). This post will tell you how I found out about the archaeological charcoal workshop (and how you can too in the...
Forget Willy Wonka, I felt that I won the golden ticket when I was accepted into the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and microMORPH’s summer short course on plant anatomy with a focus on woody plants. This two-week intensive program brought together 11 graduate students from fields such as paleobotany, evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) biology, dendrochronology, physics, and...
Since 2012, I have worked with the Southern Red Sea Archaeological Histories (SRSAH pronounced sir-sah) Project (PI: Dr. Michael Harrower, John Hopkins University) to investigate the Aksumite archaeology in Ethiopia. This post will detail a brief overview of the Aksumites, how we locate activities of the Empire in the archaeological record, and some insights into why I keep returning to Ethiopia...
I’m an archaeologist that travels around the world for both work and pleasure. I have a penchant for exploring ancient and modern places and the people, plants, and foods entangled in them. I write about archaeology, travel, and productivity.
I'm Smiti and I’m an archaeologist that travels around the world for both work and pleasure. I share stories, advice, and the habits I maintain along the way.
I use affiliate links to support this site. For more information, check out my full policy.
