Anthropology

I grew up on the shore of Lake Erie. I used to collect mussel shells and colorful, water worn pieces of glass that resembled "exotic" rocks when I was a child.

As an adult, I started collecting different types of rocks and some fossils after taking a historical geology course in college. During the summer I did clerical work on a large construction site. After the foundations were dug, I walked around the site at the end of the day looking for rocks, fossils, or human made artifacts. The supervising engineer said that he hoped I didn't find any artifacts because they would be legally required to delay construction to let an archaeologist evaluate the site first. I didn't find any.

The guys working on the site started dropping off interesting rocks on my desk. I think they did it partly to keep me from going onto the site and partly because they were amused that a woman was interested in geology and archaeology. One guy went on a 2 week honeymoon to Hawaii during that time and brought back a lava rock for me.

If you're interested, quite a few amateurs work as volunteers on archaeological digs.
Dr. Adovasio, the archaeologist who excavated Meadowcroft, was the director of an archaeological institute in my home town, Erie, PA. One summer I volunteered on one of his digs in the PA National Forest in northwestern PA. The dig was required field work experience for his archaeology students. I was just there for a week, during my vacation from work.

Adovasio's staff were directing the daily work. I had a chance to chat with them on some ideas about the earliest people in the Americas. I met Adovasio very briefly when he dropped by to check on things. I also met a mother and her daughter who were volunteers. They had previously volunteered at the Cahokia site in Illinois.

No great discoveries were made at the dig that I was on, but I got to see how the area was sectioned off and participated in walking through one section to look for anything of interest.

While the students were prepping a section for us to walk through, a Forest Ranger took the volunteers on a tour of the area surrounding the dig site. He pointed out to us the evidence of forest and water management by Native Americans, like planting trees along the river bank to protect the bank from erosion and maintain the river as a water route for travel.