Prof. John J. Shea

Questions & Answers by John J. Shea

What inspired you to pursue a career in archaeology?

Two things. First, Conan the Barbarian. Back when I was around 12 years old, I found and read Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories. Howard set these stories in a mythological prehistoric “Hyborian Age,” that was a pastiche of various historic and protohistoric cultures. I got curious about his sources for these cultures, read a bit more about them, and I found myself growing more interested in archaeology. Second: My interest in “ancestral skills,” making and using stone tools, foraging for wild foods, and allied skills. I had been interested in such things from a very young age. Ancestral skills offer a rich source of hypotheses for prehistoric archaeological research.

2. Is there a piece of advice or conversation you’ve had with a professor that has stuck with you throughout your career?

During my first week on campus (Fall 1978), I met with Prof. Karl Petruso (my instructor for Introduction to Archaeology), and I asked him what one had to do to be a successful archaeologist. He replied, “Always work as hard as you can.” Good advice for any endeavor, not just for archaeology. (He apparently followed it himself, rounding out his career as Dean and Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas.) Probably the best advice I got was not from one of my professors, but from one of my graduate school classmates, “How would you know if you are wrong?” All-too-often students assume that their professors hold all the answers and that learning is a simple top-down process that only takes place in classrooms. It isn’t. Schools have only been around for a few centuries. Peer-to-peer learning is as old as our species (why else evolve speech?), and probably much, much older. It will endure long after colleges and universities are but distant memories.

3. What has been the most challenging aspect of pursuing archaeology, either academically or professionally, and how have you navigated it?

I suffer from some sort of dyscalculia, difficulty remembering numbers and doing mathematics. Consequently, I have to be extra careful with anything in my research that involves math and statistics. Like many with dyscalculia, I initially avoided anything requiring me to do math under pressure. Over the years, though I learned to “face your fear.” I still make mistakes, but if you aren’t making mistakes, then you aren’t learning.

4. Looking back, how has your perspective on archaeology evolved from when you first started studying it to where you are now?

I was one of the first students to sign up for the Archaeological Studies major at BU (1981?). At the time, I was convinced that archaeology could and should be a stand-alone discipline, but I have since changed my mind. This is in part because my research explores the connections between archaeology and human evolution (“deep-time” prehistory). I am a paleoanthropologist who uses archaeology to test hypotheses about evolutionary changes in human behavior. If one wants to explain how humans evolved, then one has to know what things distinguish humans from other primates and the leading and competing hypotheses about sources of change and variability in human behavior. Studies of human reproductive ecology are fertile wellsprings for such hypotheses. After all, behaviors without reproductive consequences are evolutionarily irrelevant.

5. Is there anything else unique to you that you’re willing to share (especially fieldwork experiences)?

My first excavation was a field school in Egypt, near Alexandria, during the summer between my first and second years at BU. It was my first time overseas and my first encounter with a truly different culture. Formerly a “small-town boy,” I was hooked. Since then, I have conducted fieldwork in Belize, Israel, Jordan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, as well as at countless historic and prehistoric sites in New England. In each of these places, I have colleagues who emulate “prairie dogs” (Cynomys spp.), rodents who spend most of their time in or near their burrows. Wherever I excavate, I walk around the excavation site for a few kilometers in each direction. Doing so provides hints about why people chose to live in such-and-such a place rather than elsewhere. Even so simple a thing as locating the nearest stable sources of potable water, or conversely, noting their absence, can suggest hypotheses about settlement patterns and sites function(s). So, my advice to aspiring young archaeologists, don’t be a prairie dog.

Advice for those thinking about graduate studies in archaeology (extra) 

• If you are planning a career in cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology, then get at least a year or two of hands-on experience before going to grad school. Select a program that has an affiliated CRM operation and get as much fieldwork experience as you can without compromising your studies. If you are planning on graduate studies in academic archaeology, then, figure out what you want to study connects to anthropology’s “big questions,” (1) how/why are humans different from other animals and (2) how/why do humans differ from one another. It may take you a bit of thinking about this, but before you go to grad school you should be able to explain how what you want to study links to one or the other of these big questions in 5 or 6 short, simple sentences.
• Do your homework:
  • Karen Kelsey’s (2015) The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide To Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job, provides a good overview of what you should be doing at each stage of your education and professional life.
  • Kintigh, et al., (2014) Grand Challenges for Archaeology (American Antiquity, 79(1), 5-24. doi:10.7183/0002-7316.79.1.5) identifies “hot topics” in current and near-future archaeological research.  (Don’t sweat it if what you want to study isn’t named specifically, these things change and vary depending on many variables.)
  • Speakman RJ, Hadden CS, Colvin MH, et al. Choosing a Path to the Ancient World in a Modern Market: The Reality of Faculty Jobs in Archaeology (American Antiquity. 2018;83(1):1-12. doi:10.1017/aaq.2017.36).  This paper evaluates doctoral programs’ success at placing their graduates in faculty jobs.  Long story short, a small number of programs account for a disproportionate number of archaeologists employed in academia.