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Dr
Judy Powell
What
is your current position?
Principal Heritage Conservation Officer, Environmental Protection Agency, Queensland – trying to improve conservation and management of cultural heritage on Qld’s National Parks and State Forests.
Where
did you study archaeology?
University of Queensland (Department of Classics and Ancient History)
How
did you become interested in archaeology?
My earliest memory of wanting to be an archaeologist was at about five when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up - and decided that was the longest word I knew. A lot of irrelevant things intervened (like becoming a secondary school teacher and teaching things I knew very little about) – and it wasn’t until I was a mature aged student working part time in Mackay as a visiting ESL teacher that I got around to going back to Uni. I couldn’t do Australian archaeology as an external student, so ended up doing an Honours degree in classical archaeology. I went to dig at Pella in Jordan, at a Neolithic site on Cyprus (Kalavassos) and an odd sort of ‘nothing’ site on the island of Jersey (La Moye).
I ended up doing a PhD in Bronze Age Aegean archaeology, and spent a lot of time traipsing around Greece as a consequence. The best advice I received was not to worry about ringing people up out of the blue – because to most people their excavations are like their children and they’ll happily talk about them for hours. Time spent at Akrotiri on Santorini with my co-supervisor Professor Christos Doumas was a highlight.
After finishing my thesis on the evidence for fishing in the prehistoric Aegean, I was a Fellow with the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens and worked at the Fitch Laboratory, British School at Athens developing a fish bone reference collection to be housed in their Environmental Unit. Subsequently I worked on the fishbone assemblage at the Mesolithic and Neolithic site of Youra in the North Aegean (with Dr Adamantios Sampson, now with the University of the Aegean, but then with the Ministry of Culture). The assemblage – the second largest for any period in Greek history or prehistory – occupied way too much time of my time over the next few years.
What
archaeological projects are you working on at the moment?
Ha!! I’m a bureaucrat!!
In fact, I’ve been fortunate enough to work recently – with Sean Ulm and Jill Reid – on the 19th century sawmilling settlement of Mill Point in the Great Sandy National Park (Cooloola section). I’m also working with colleagues at the EPA developing a cultural heritage strategy for the Moreton Bay District of Qld Parks and Wildlife Service (not exactly an archaeological project, but related).
Tell
us about one of your most interesting archaeological discoveries.
I have to say I got fed up with fallen mud brick at Pella, but the first one I uncovered was pretty nice. The same could be said of mullet hyomandibulars - the first one was pretty exciting, but it all paled a bit by the time I’d finished looking at 5922 cranial bones!
One of the most interesting archaeological discoveries, however, came from working with scientists - mostly geologists and metallurgists - at the Fitch. I had always assumed that scientists were very sure of their methods, their results, and their analyses – and that this set them apart from the more tenuous and subjective results in the humanities. It was great to discover that this is a myth – but it is still often difficult to persuade people with little knowledge of the sciences that they are the least absolute of disciplines.
Tell
us about a funny/disastrous/amazing experience that you have had
while doing archaeology.
The expression on the face of the Greek customs official when my suitcase (full of about 10 kgs of fishbones) went through the X Ray machine at Athens airport was pretty funny. I have to say it certainly looked as though I’d butchered my grandmother and munched her up in the blender.
What’s
your favourite part of being an archaeologist?
Although I whinge about being a bureaucrat, I actually like the fact that I try to bring archaeology into the real world. The one thing I’ve always liked about archaeology is that you have to be able to use you head AND your hands, and the combination of research, theory and practical application is what attracts me to working to get cultural heritage issues taken more seriously by National Parks. (Although it can be bloody frustrating at times).
Follow
up reading:
http://www.bsa.gla.ac.uk/fitch/index.html has information about the Fitch Lab and BSA.
http://www.skopelos.net/sporades/youra.htm has some brief information about Youra.
http://www.atsis.uq.edu.au/millpoint/ - outlines the Mill Point project.
http://www.bsa.gla.ac.uk/pubs/index.htm - The Greek Mesolithic publication
http://www.bsa.gla.ac.uk/pubs/index.htm - Zooarchaeology in Greece
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