Discovering Archaeology

October 6, 2017

Our next student blogger is Nicole Wentz, who discusses her discovery of anthropology and archaeology during her college career.

I never really thought about what interested me until I actually came face to face with college and the “bigger picture”. I’d always been told I had a knack for drawing and assumed I’d just become an artist, simple as that. But did I really want to be told what to draw for the rest of my life? It was whilst pondering this question, slumped over on my parents’ couch, my mother made the offhand comment. “No, you know what you want to do? You want to be an archeologist. Like Josh Gates.” Josh gates just so happens to be the host of a few shows my mother and I used to love watching together: Destination Truth and Expedition Unknown.

Those words hit me like a sack of brick and all my thoughts came to a halt. Archaeology had never even crossed my mind. I enrolled in an Introduction to Anthropology class. It only fueled my growing curiosity and amazement. After spending almost 19 years filling my head with colors and shapes and lines, I felt as if I knew everything about art, that there was nothing left to teach me. My anthropology class did a complete 360° turn on my knowledge and suddenly I didn’t know anything. Everything was knew and everything amazed me. Now I know that despite common misconception, the cave man never existed and perhaps Homo sapiens did not arrive in the Americas from across the land bridge like I was previously taught in high school.

Next, I hopped right into Archaeology of the Southeast and immediately was intimidated. Everyone in the class seems to know so much more in this area of study, so I felt lost and very behind. Despite this, I wanted the experience and more importantly I wanted to know. I took the opportunity to participate in field work at both the Monastery site and the Sorrel-Weed House.

In Seifert’s Archaeology class, I’m getting to learn a deeper view of how people came to the Americas and how nomadic people developed into groups with diverse languages and complex social structures and evolved into civilizations like there are today. It’s incredible to think about how Pre-Clovis Native Americans created tools out of nothing but chert! Technology was built up from almost virtually nothing. Nothing but rock. Would you be able to have come up with the idea of striking rock to create something that had previously never existed before?

As I’m taking this class, I can’t help but find connections between all my classes that help a general understanding of history fall into place in my mind, instead of it being a jumbled mess of dates and events. I’m coming to understand how humans evolved and how many contributors are involved to get humanity to where it’s at today. Archaeology of the Southeast, Civilization 1, and Art History have all shown me how mind-blowing the development of early language and social structure is, along with upgrading technology and creating art and architecture. Really, it’s all so incredible!

In the field work, I’m getting a chance to rediscover history personally. This class has opened up a whole new set of opportunities. It’s all so very exciting, and there’s still a lot more to learn. History is always changing as archaeologists, anthropologists, and many more continue to ask how, why, when, and where. There’s much in this field of study that is still unknown, and so the people within this field continue to search for the answers.

So many people find history to be boring and not an area of interest that often times archaeology is completely overlooked as a subject, as I had at first. This is really such a shame as in reality this field of study is so important with ongoing projects all over the world. Professor Seifert’s attempts at spreading public awareness locally ought to be applauded and hopefully Digging Savannah will lead to support so one day Savannah will be more involved in archaeological matters, as this city has such a rich history waiting to be rediscovered and explored.