PHOTOGRAPHIC
FIELDTRIP
The following photos are from the summer of 1987, when one
of my field crewmen was an amateur photographer who gave me scads
of the pictures he took.
There are hundreds--if not thousands--
of pictures of my butt on file at the MHTD, but those are the
property of the state. And I speak literally: in the vast
majority of the photos in which I appear, what you see is my ass.
I once asked my boss why he kept taking pictures of my butt. He
got sort of defensive and flustered. The reason, actually, is
that I was usually face-down in an excavation scraping dirt with
a sharpened trowel, but still, I grew tired of seeing my buttocks
looming in the foreground.
"It's your best side, Will," my boss
finally said.
Scroll
down this to get the full effect.
I was digging a step trench into the side of a creek bank. Why?
I needed to see the different layers of dirt--soil strata, that
is. I ended up finding PaleoIndian artifacts seven feet down,
and got yelled at. PaleoIndian artifacts and highway
construction don't mix.
When people think of archaeologists, they see us riding
elephants and having romantic adventures. Does this look
romantic?
And yes. One of the famous photos of my butt. (Photographer:
John
Hockaday).
Here I am expressing my
annoyance
at having that goddamned
camera in my face again while I was trying to get some work
done.
People always asked what we were looking for
(and how we knew where to look for it). We weren't looking
for
anything: in fact, the fondest hope of those who paid our
salary was that we would find nothing at all. If we found
something--like, say, PaleoIndian artifacts--it took a lot more
time, money, and paperwork to build their road. However, no
one had any problem with the disposable diaper I dug up out of
this hole. It is, I am sure, still in archival storage at MHTD.
(Photographer: John Hockaday).
copyright © 1997
William Brame
Reproduction or distribution of any of the
materials contained herein is prohibited by law
without written permission of the artist.