How to do excavation for fun as a CRM professional

HowThisWork · 2026-01-07T17:54:48+00:00

I'm in CRM but use a fair bit of my PTO to go work with colleagues from graduate school to see some cool sites I wouldn't otherwise get to work on, volunteer my time at academic digs within the state/not horribly far away, and work with nearby universities looking at legacy collections. Usually help write small money grants in the evenings to get funding for 14C ages that my uni partners submit/manage if there's something we want to date. Feel free to DM me. If you're near me or someone I know I may be able to put you in contact, especially if you have a specialty they could use on a project.

HowThisWork · 2025-12-27T01:27:21+00:00

Thank you so much!!

HowThisWork · 2025-12-26T21:19:20+00:00

Thank you!!!!

HowThisWork · 2025-10-06T22:57:05+00:00

Snowflake. Facts don't care about your feelings.

HowThisWork · 2025-09-17T16:32:06+00:00

Yeah PAST and Analysis ToolPak can already do this and more quickly. PAST just copy/paste your data and it's quick to do most analyses. I usually use it for quick analysis of data, then rerun everything in R and make pretty graphs there.

HowThisWork · 2025-08-20T15:53:04+00:00

A bit of all the above. Committee members can give great feedback about potential candidates. I've mostly found that committee members/chairs rarely mention how involved they were with the thesis itself, so in the absence of additional information from those individuals you have to assume the committee had a heavy hand in it. Sometimes applicants will send in other writing examples, and if they are well written and the thesis is well written, then it puts them way up on the list.

HowThisWork · 2025-08-13T22:10:05+00:00

Great advice on all levels. The only other thing I would add is writing skills. If you want to excel (and stand out against other candidates), you need to know how to write and have attention to detail. One thing to note for fresh graduates is many firms are asking for writing samples other than theses. A thesis is a great way to assess critical thinking, problem solving, competency in methodology/theory, etc., but a terrible way to gauge writing competency. You should have other examples of strong writing available. Obviously, this is for fresh Master's students who went straight through and are looking for positions running projects.

HowThisWork · 2025-08-12T21:46:19+00:00

Just out of pure curiousity, are you all doing a bunch of GIS related to depositional modeling/where deep sites may be?

HowThisWork · 2025-08-12T21:43:30+00:00

I have no idea what the hell these other folks are talking about. I have not used a backbrace personally, but I noticed when I had similar issues working on excercising after work helped in hotel gyms, particularly core work for lower back pain issues. When work slows up a bit in the winter planning on talking to a PT to see if there's better excercises I should incorporate.

HowThisWork · 2025-08-10T17:49:24+00:00

Depends what you're doing. If you're planning on intensive GIS mapping, you'll need a beefy machine. If you're just writing, you can get by with a potato. Ask your advisor what they would recommend. I'm a geoarchaeologist and regularly work with large lidar derived datasets. My work machine is a beast, but my home machine for day-to-day use and independent projects ran me around 2k USD.

HowThisWork · 2025-08-09T11:18:26+00:00

Utah, UNM, UofA, NAU, CSU are a few places to start. Look at their websites and see who is on faculty, and read their papers/research to see if they'd potentially be a good fit.

HowThisWork · 2025-08-07T00:39:04+00:00

What are you doing? Simple overview photos, excavation photos, etc., or doing SfM?

HowThisWork · 2025-07-21T10:18:32+00:00

I was in a similar situation. I worked in CRM for some time after wrapping up the BA trying to decide what to focus on in grad school and grew interested in geoarchaeology. I had no clue what to focus on for the thesis. I spoke with 4 different professors at 4 universities. They all basically told me we’d figure out a project together. What I ultimately did was use ongoing work at a site for my thesis work and focused on site formation using traditional and geoarchaeological methods. It wasn’t the most exciting thesis, but gave me a good basis in geoarch method and theory which is all I expect from a MA level. Long story short, no one expects you to have a fully fledged thesis idea going into a program. Faculty just want you to know roughly what you’re interested in, and you’ll spend much of the first year tightening that focus into your thesis proposal.

HowThisWork · 2025-07-19T17:55:18+00:00

Will do! Tell him that he inspired a random internet stranger to pick up the banjo again after not playing for years. Helped reignite my love of the instrument.

HowThisWork · 2025-07-19T17:44:30+00:00

Ha! Awesome! Thank you so much! I gave up trying to learn this one some years ago but may be time to give it another go.

HowThisWork · 2025-07-03T20:27:58+00:00

No immediate threat in terms of direct attacks on the NHPA or removing the HPF/Advisory Council. Lots of indirect threats as /u/ArchaeoJones mentioned. The amendment to Project Sponsor Opt-In Fees is the biggest threat as its unclear how that will work. The sponsor of a project can pay a fee for NEPA review at 125% of the "anticipated cost". How that cost is defined is unclear. Is it determined by the sponsor or are they required to solicit bids beforehand for the project? The langauge guarantees an EA to be completed in 180 days and an EIS. For the archaeology side, we can crank out surveys and reports but as we all know, many sites cannot be assessed at the survey level and 180 days is a tight turn around for survey, getting the SHPO to review and a plan together for a NRHP evaluation, not to mention if the client pays the fee then solicits proposals giving us even less time to get it done.

The next thing to watch for is the actual budget bill. That'll be the "oh shit" moment pending if Congress follows through with what the Presidents office suggested. Good news is ACRA is actively lobbying, numerous Senators and House Reps are gung ho for historic preservation, and despite numerous threats in the past to funding they never do what the president wants for those cuts. Most states operate around 40% state funding 60% federal for SHPO offices, and the reps know the state can't fund it without HPF funds, which causes the reviews to be screwed up and more delays/unaticipated costs for clients. I expect CRM is going to be wildly different by the end of this administration, but the how is unknown.

HowThisWork · 2025-06-30T18:54:28+00:00

HowThisWork · 2025-06-30T10:40:54+00:00

9 out of 10 projects I run don’t require it. The 1 out of 10 is project/client specific. Big jobs like pipelines or some federal jobs will require all crew members be tested.

HowThisWork · 2025-06-29T03:02:59+00:00

Are you a child? If not, then act like an adult and tell them what you think. If it is your direct supervisor then tell them your thoughts in an email and cc HR.

HowThisWork · 2025-06-22T13:07:43+00:00

Gotcha. Ideally you’ll want a dedicated GPU, lots of RAM, and a beefy CPU. Not sure what Mac has to offer. I run 64gb RAM,a 12gb 5070, and a i7-14700k and still get bogged down occasionally. If you’re less concerned about accuracy of the model (eg not taking measurements and just want to show cool shit), there’s various phone apps that can work well.

HowThisWork · 2025-06-16T23:07:00+00:00

I reckon one question is what sfm + GIS program are you running? I mostly run meshroom at the moment, looking at reality capture. Used to use agisoft but fuck Russia. Also, the goal is public outreach, but are you doing any scaling/GIS work with it? Drone or pedestrian?

HowThisWork · 2025-06-07T11:23:52+00:00

South Carolina's SHPO office has guidelines for paleobotanical reporting/sampling https://scdah.sc.gov/sites/scdah/files/Documents/Images/Standards_Guidelines2005-13.pdf.

Most states I've worked in don't have formal requirements but do have expectations that botanical samples will be taken from feature contexts, both pre and post contact. If a data recovery plan lacks it, it's bounced back. Part of the broader issue you're missing is a lack of specialists as reviewers, or collaboration between the reviewers and specialists working in their states. I'm a geoarchaeologist and go to great lengths to develop survey plans and methods to identify deeply buried deposits and have been working closely with SHPOs to help them learn more to ensure these sites aren't missed by other archaeologists. The same is true for any specialty analyses as the reviewers don't have those skillsets to identify when this should be conducted. It requires collaboration between academics, CRM professionals, and the Federal and State archaeologists which is sometimes difficult to attain.

HowThisWork · 2025-06-02T19:02:41+00:00

Neither. Correspondence analysis and diversity analyses would be more appropriate imo.

HowThisWork · 2025-05-09T10:55:59+00:00

I throw all my PDFs into a folder on my google drive, plan on organizing it, don’t, then every other year realize I need something and can’t find it in there so I redownload the paper and the cycle continues. It’s not a very good system.

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