by R. Edward Moore
To prove it here is a picture of me at work!! Nice office ehh! The place is Pecos National Monument in New Mexico.
If you still do not know what an anthropologist is go here to "Read me first", find out, then come back.
That's me in the red shirt. My good buddy Bill Cruz is next to me. Bill is the world's leading expert in Pecos Pueblo Indian pottery. He can tell you all about where and when the pottery was made just by looking at a small piece of a broken pot. The National Park Service ranger lady ( the good lookin one in the picture ) is Genavive Head. Gen was my crew chief. Gen is an expert on all kinds of things about archeology and anthropology. We all worked together in a archeological survey of the park.
We are standing on the side of a high hill overlooking a lot of stuff. Behind us is the Pecos National monument. If you knew where to look you could see a 1200 year old Pueblo called the Pecos Pueblo. There are seven other smaller and older pueblos here too -- several are in this picture, but you cannot see them. The Pecos river starts just a few miles north of here and flows right behind us at the bottom of the hill we are on. The Santa Fe trail is also right behind us in that valley -- right on the other side. In 1540, the Spanish conquistador Coronado marched right through that valley behind us on his way to the Llano Estecado or the high plains of Texas. Just to the right of this picture is where the civil war battle of Glorieta Pass was fought. That light green clearing is about where the Union Army troops camped. Comanche and Kiowa Indians would camp here when they came to trade with or to attack the Pecos Pueblo people. While I was there I got to go to a Pecos Indian buffalo dance. Here is another picture of a lady Buffalo Dancer.
Look close and you can see a pink house right next to my hat. That house was owned by the movie star Greer Garson ( she was a star a long long time ago ). John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Eva Gardener and lots of other movie stars stayed there once. Several movies were filmed in that valley. That house is where we stayed for the summer while we were working.
As anthropologists and archeologists our work was to walk around and find the places where Indians camped, where Spanish conquistadors and missionaries did things, where the civil war guys left stuff. We did all of this in the outdoors, in the fantastic Sangre de Christo mountains of New Mexico. How would you like a job where they paid you to put on a backpack, go into the mountains, hike around all day, and find Indian artifacts and Spanish conquistador stuff? Now you see why I say anthropology rules!!!! I could not do this if I was not an anthropologist and archeologist. This is real life "Raiders of the Lost Ark" stuff. This is what we do!!!!!
Did I say "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? Here I am doing archeology at Petra in the country of Jordan.
This is Petra, where "Raiders of the Last Crusade" was filmed. Thats the "Raiders" movie with the old army tank. Here I am in front of an ancient Nabatean tomb in Petra. Thats me in the red headress. The guy in the green jacket is Dr. James Charlesworth. He is with Princeton University and is head of the Dead Sea Scrolls Research Project at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is an archeologist too. Archeologists get to go and see way cool places. I have forgotten the name of the other guy, but he is an archeology graduate student at Princeton.
To become an anthropologist you have to study hard and make good grades so you can go to college and study some more. It takes a lot of science, history, and social studies to get an anthropology degree. Bill, from in the picture at the start of this page, has a college degree in anthropology. So does Gen ( in the same picture, remember ) but, Gen Head has more than a simple college degree, she has what's called a Masters degree in archeology. To get a masters degree you have to finish regular college first, then take some more classes. A lot of us anthropologists are fuds. What is a fud, you ask? Thats a Ph.d degree -- pronounced fud, right? :-) -- also called a doctors degree. That comes with more schooling after you get the masters degree. Dr. Charlesworth, in the picture at Petra, is a fud. He has so many degrees I lost track. In school he has learned 22 languages. He can read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and ancient Hebrew!!
Anthropology is not just for guys. Look at Gen there. Gen is one smart lady. She is an expert on Indian stone tools, and mapping, and Indian pottery, and project orginization, and, well, you name it :-). Gen Head really knows her archeology. She taught me a ton of good stuff while I was working with her. In fact, Gen Head was ( and is ) in charge of the Pecos survey for the National Park Service. If you want to know more about women anthropologists and archeologist, here is a link to a web site about Dr. Dee Ann Story. Dr. Story was a famous woman archeologist in Texas.
So, what do you think? Would you like to be an anthropologist or archeologist too? If so, you better study hard. Take science and history courses. Make good grades so you can go to college. YOU CANNOT BE AN ANTHROPOLOGIST OR ARCHEOLOGIST WITHOUT A COLLEGE DEGREE. Got that? So start working on it NOW.
Hope to see you on one of my projects in about 20 years.
