Graduation: check!

ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change

I didn't learn a bit of Spanish, but I still managed to get As in both of my community college courses.  I sent the official transcripts to ASU, and I just learned that they conferred my B.A. in Anthropology on August 5th.

In spite of this successful milestone and my continued interest in Archaeology, I have decided to suspend my pursuit of graduate studies in the field. Instead, I am re-focusing on my current profession, i.e., embedded software design and development.

The cold, hard truth is that my financial commitments cannot be met with the pay I will find in the social sciences, but working as an aerospace engineer will pay the bills.  I love archaeology, but I also love spaceflight and astronomy.  I am attending the University of North Dakota beginning this semester, working toward an M.S. in Space Studies.  I'm also encouraging my company (a relatively small engineering firm) to pursue work in the growing Commercial Space field, and hope to be a part of humanity's journey into the solar system.

If you want to keep up with me as I take a different path, you can follow me at my new Twitter account @ElevenPointTwo, or on my new blog, ElevenPoint2.

I'm not turning my back on Archaeology, just on a career in Archaeology.  I plan to stay active in the OAC, read papers that interest me regarding the American Southwest and/or Ancient Urbanism, volunteer at local digs when I can, and attend a conference now and then.  But it is definitely being re-classified as a hobby.

Studying Human Origins

The Spring 2009 semester is quickly approaching, and I just registered for my final undergraduate Anthropology course: Human Origins. The really great news (beyond the obvious fact that I'm nearly finished with my B.A.) is that this course is taught by Donald Johanson.

Yep, the famous paleoanthropologist who discovered Lucy teaches an undergraduate course on the subject every other semester right here at ASU (the home of his Institute of Human Origins).

Even though I'm planning to specialize in archaeology, I've always been fascinated by the mysteries involving the human family tree. I'm really looking forward to this opportunity.

Understand University Procedures

I found myself in a bit of a predicament when I went to register for Spring classes.

I'm taking a graduate seminar at the University of Arizona in Tucson this semester, so I am not currently enrolled at ASU. Before I did this I checked with my department, and I was told that I could take one semester off from ASU without any problems, but that if I took two or more off consecutively, I would need to re-apply and get admitted all over again.

It turns out that the person in the anthropology department was misinformed, and when I chose not to enroll this semester, I was dropped from the university. When I called to find out why I could not register, I was told that:

1. I would need to fill out an all-new application to the university ("Better start it right now, sir."). This includes listing my high school, all colleges I attended...
   
2. Because of a high volume of applications, I should not expect an answer (i.e., am I accepted) for at least three weeks...
3. I would have to move to the latest catalog (i.e., my degree requirements might change)
4. I should have filed a Leave of Absence form to avoid the whole mess.

The lesson here: Ask the right questions, at the right time, of the right people. Know the process at your university!

I have worked it all out, and I will be able to register. All is well, but it was a wild ride.

A Crazy Summer, followed by an Important Fall

SUMMER 2008

I'm two weeks into summer school: Spanish 101 every night of the week, and an internet course on Urban Politics. It seems that all I do is get up, go to work, go to class, go home, go to bed.

I'm taking Spanish 102 in the second 5-week session, so I will complete 11 total credit hours before the beginning of the Fall semester.

FALL 2008

Once the Fall comes, I'll be busier than ever:

• Spanish 201 at Rio Salado college (it's an Internet course)
• Graduate course in Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson

It is only nine miles shorter to drive to Tucson from my house (as opposed to Flagstaff), but my wife has convinced me that the more friendly year-round weather will make it a better choice. I have already been accepted to Arizona as an unclassified Graduate student, and I've already registered.

I'm going to be taking a Mesoamerican Archaeology course from Dr. Takeshi Inomata. He is a Mayanist (he's currently doing fieldwork in Guatemala), and I think I would enjoy working with him.

Before the Fall semester is over, I will need to submit all application materials to the various graduate schools in which I'm interested. I plan to apply to the following (presented in alphabetical order, NOT the order of preference):

• Arizona State University (Ph.D. program in Anthropology)
  
• Northern Arizona University (M.A. program in Anthropology)
  
• University of Arizona (M.A. program in Anthropology)
  
• University of North Texas (Online M.A. program in Applied Anthropology)

SPRING 2009

I still need to finish up my B.A., and I'll need to take the following courses to make this happen:

• Spanish 202 (at ASU)
• One more Physical Anthropology course

I only hope that Dr. Johansen is teaching ASM 246, Human Origins! Otherwise, I will end up taking a lab course such as Fossil Hominids or Primatology (takes LOTs of time), or maybe something easire such as Peopling of the World.

The big mystery, of course, is where will I be in the Fall of 2009?

That was one busy semester

Two days ago, I turned in the term paper for Dr. Smith's grad course, Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments. I don't have an exact count, but I suspect I spent over 100 hours on the research and the writing. It's not as good as I would like it to be-- if I decide to clean it up and really finish it, I already know many of the changes I would make.

My paper, entitled "Neighborhoods in Non-urban Settlements: A Cross-cultural Comparison," used criteria originally developed to demonstrate sub-settlement groups in the Anatolian Neolithic (in Turkey) in an attempt to find neighborhoods in Native American pueblos right here in the Southwest. This will be the topic of a longer post as soon as I get the chance. I'm creating a Powerpoint slide show that may be worth posting, for those of you who are interested.

I still have another research project in the works with Dr. Martin, and I'll be finishing my data analysis very soon. More on this later.

I'm just glad I can finally get a few full nights of sleep.

Good Practice for Grad School

This has been an exciting semester so far, and an immensely busy one. I'm taking ASB 591 Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments, I'm still working on a paper with Dr. Martin, I still have quite a bit of data entry to do for Dr. Smith, and I'm sitting in on Dr. Martin's graduate seminar entitled Biology and Society.

This seems like pretty good practice for graduate school-- since I'm doing all of the reading for two seminars and working on a major research project. If I am lucky enough to get accepted into the Master's program at NAU, it can't be much worse (except for the drive).

In Dr. Smith's Built Environment class, we're reading up on how the many ways that archaeologists propose for inferring culture from architecture. We've had some really stimulating conversations (there are five us us unrolled in the class), and kicked around many things I had never considered.

We've covered new broad topics each week:

• The Meaning of the Built Environment - reading mostly works by Amos Rapoport, who proposes that the environment can possess lower-level meaning (cues for what we are supposed to do), middle level meaning (e.g. identity, status, power), or high level meaning (e.g. world view, spiritual meaning). Intriguing urban design/social engineering controversy: Urban planner Robert Moses designed expressway systems in New York City, and supposedly designed the expressway bridges with such low clearance that public transportation (buses) could not go under them. This discriminated against the poor communities (few had automobiles) preventing them from visiting parks, baseball, etc. He is even credited by some with driving the Brooklyn Dodgers out of New York. read more at Wikipedia.
  

• Settings for Activities - Dana Anderson, Susan Kent, and more Rapoport. We covered the definition of "activity" and "activity areas", discussed the types of activities (daily, subsistence, ritualistic, production, consumption), the types of activity areas (shared or dedicated), and Rapoport's concept that activities cannot be viewed alone, but as part of a larger activity system. He believes that settings are also part of larger setting systems.

• Habitus and Home - Looking at domestic structures, Richard Blanton, Kent Lightfoot, and others looked at methods for identifying meaning. Most of these authors make it clear that to gain a full picture, one must combine data from archaeology, ethnohistory, and even oral histories.

• Housing and Communication - House construction and design is to a large extent a consumer decision... how much to spend, etc. Blanton looks at how the decoration and design of a house communicates on multiple levels: What group the owners are in, their status in the community, etc.

• Roland Fletcher - His model for settlement growth is pretty interesting (although I'm not sure what it can be used for if you are an archaeologist). It grows out of his belief that interpersonal interaction and limits on communication increase as settlements get larger, ultimately limiting the size of growth until the interactions are curbed or new facilitating communication technologies emerge. See The Limits of Settlement Growth.

We have 8 more weeks of topics, usually reading 6 papers per week. I need to read a related book and write a publishable review, and I also need to produce an original research paper, some kind of cross-cultural comparative study using existing data.

If I can survive this semester, I should be able to handle the real thing.

Springtime: Getting Serious

Okay, I know it's been a long time since I posted. For the two of you who still check occasionally, I apologize.

I'm going to try to post more often, especially since things have been getting more interesting for me as a student.

Some highlights:

• Dr. Martin and I are close to submitting a paper on an important discovery we've made regarding the social effects on the sex ratio at birth in Africa. More details once it's on its way.

• I managed to get all of my application materials submitted on time for the Anthropology Masters at NAU. Now I just have to wait... I should hear in the next few weeks.
  

• I'm taking a graduate seminar from Dr. Michael Smith: Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments. Tons of reading, tons of excellent discussion, and tons of stress are making it a novel experience.

I'll be posting separately in more detail on each of these topics real soon now.

A new subject: Linguistics

It's the Fall semester, so it must be time for Dr. Hudak's Principles of Linguistics class. I've been looking forward to this, mostly because it is the only field of Anthropology about which I still know NOTHING.

We're beginning with phonetic consonants (for English), and we already have a quiz tomorrow after only three class periods.

There's not much to report yet, but it's good to be back on campus.

New paper on the chimpanzees by ASU Prof

I just posted over at Primatology.org an overview of a new paper entitled "Genetic structure of chimpanzee populations." It finds that the three large populations of chimps in Africa are not just separated by geographic features, but are in fact different genetic populations (and that the taxonomic designation of each of them as a subspecies is entirely valids).

One of the co-authors is Dr. Anne C. Stone, a member of the faculty here at Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

Good news, but still gotta do the work

It's been a wild ride this semester. In the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a research paper for Human Osteology Lab, and I finally finished it (the night before it was due, of course). You can read Bipedal Adaptations in the Hominid Pelvis here.

I'm studying for the final exam in the same course, but that hasn't stopped me from celebrating my good fortune: I won the Spring 2007 Undergraduate Research Assistantship Award from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change here at Arizona State University!

My research proposal was one of two chosen from a large field of entries, so I consider it a high honor. I'll be continuing to work with Dr. John F. Martin, investigating the connections between the sex ratio at birth and birth order in Africa. It's not a fortune, but the award will pretty much pay for my tuition and books this coming semester.

That was fast... the semester has already begun.

It was nice to have the summer off, but now it's back to the quest.

This semester, I'm taking Human Osteology from Dr. Gary Schwartz. We've already had three lectures and one lab, and I'm loving it. I simply had no idea what was going on inside of bones! These puppies are extremely complex, dynamic systems, and we tend to think of them as being so static.

I'll probably end the semester ready to change my area of emphasis within Anthro again... or maybe even decide to major in Biology, or go to Med School! It's all quite exciting.

Here's a quick osteo-factoid: You have a completely new skeleton every ten years.