Archaeology has been a part of my life since 2012. At the time, I was studying biology at the University of North Carolina, but my heart was not in it. Archaeology had never crossed my mind; I knew no archaeologists. But, as I read each course description, and found myself more and more excited, I decided to make the leap.
My first excavation was digging an ancient Byzantine synagogue in northern Israel. I spent a month that summer picking through layer after layer of material, Ottoman ovens, Crusader pottery, and the synagogue itself. Huqoq was particularly special because it contains a rare and well-preserved mosaic pavement. Watching the soil be carefully dabbed away from the 1500 year old floors cemented my love for that site and the discipline. I would see me excavating there for the next 6 seasons and becoming a staff member.
While excavations at Huqoq continued, I graduated with my bachelors in archaeology, but did not have an immediate interest in grad school. Therefore, I took the opportunity to join an excavation - in Southern Germany with the University of Tübingen. Starkly different to Huqoq, we excavated an Aurignacian era cave called Vogelherd. It had been previously excavated in the 1930s, but the modern project was carefully combing through the backfill layers to find materials (such as ivory, bone, and lithics) that were missed. I stayed on at Vogelherd for 9 months, both as part of the excavation team and later data entry, cataloguing all 30,000 bags of material.
When my tenure at Vogelherd completed, I realized that I wanted to return to academia and develop my research skills. I chose the University of Edinburgh to complete my MSc. in Late Antique Islamic and Byzantine Studies. The course took a multi-faceted approach to the period, allowing us to look at economics, archaeology, language, politics, etc. to gain a fuller understanding of Antiquity. My thesis returned me to Huqoq where I considered the mosaic pavements and what they could tell us about the Huqoq villagers and their place within 4th century Galilee.
However, as the masters came to end, I realized that while I enjoyed the research aspect of the masters, I missed speaking with a more general audience. One of the greatest values of archaeology to me is the story that it tells about us as humans, and I wanted to be a part of interpreting that for the public and using archaeology as a tool to connect communities. This led me to Archaeology Scotland. My volunteer work here, found me working directly with communities both through in-person groups and through our social media, sharing discoveries and running interactive quizzes. I travelled to Cyprus to learn about archaeology’s role is our sustainable future and to Orkney to build ties with the University of Highlands and Islands.
Archaeology has been a strong force in my life, propelling me to new places and compelling me to explore, and I am forever grateful for this adventure.
