Archaeologists Quotes

“Even in the 1980s your average young archaeologist would have had difficulty raising capital for a house. I knew this because it’s one of the things archaeologists will tell you about, at length, at the slightest provocation.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping

“Were archaeologists really such a sex-starved lot as all that? Did pigs really sweat?”
― Paul Russell, The Coming Storm

“It is curious why anybody should pooh-pooh a study of fossils or various forms of rocks or lava. Such things grant us our only vision into Natural History’s big book; and it isn't a book in first-class condition. Far from it! Just a tiny scrap; a slip; or, possibly a big chunk is found, with nothing notifying us as to how it got to that particular point, nor how long ago. Man can only look at it, lift it, rap it, cut into it, and squint at it through a magnifying glass. And,— think about it. That’s all; until a formal study brings accompanying thoughts from many minds; and, by such tactics, judging that in all probability such and such a rock or fossil footprint is about so old. Natural History holds you in its grasp through just this impossibility of finding actual facts; for it is thus causing you to think. Now, thinking is not only a voluntary function; it is an acquisition; an art. Plants do not think. Animals probably do, but in a primary way, such as an aid in knowing poisonous foods, and how to bring up an offspring with similar ability. But Man can, and should think, and think hard and constantly. It is ridiculous to rush blindly into an action without looking forward to lay out a plan. Such an unthinking custom is almost a panic, and panic is but a mild form of insanity”
― Ernest Vincent Wright, Gadsby

“Self-preservation and determination meant she could get away with anything. As her law-abiding, conventionally minded daughter, I secretly envied her this. She was not the clinging-vine type, nor one who could coax sugar from a lemon. Hers was the frontal attack with no inhibitions. She told the Nazis you could not trust Hitler, and they let her go. In the days of chaperones, she hitch-hiked a ride on a French destroyer along the coast of Crete; 'All quite proper, I had my cook with me,' she explained.”
― Mary Allsebrook

“Wszyscy archeolodzy są ekscentrykami. Normalnych nie ma. Nie wiem, z czego to wynika. Praca jest dość oryginalna, może przyciąga takich właśnie ludzi. Ale faktem jest, że w niewielu grupach zawodowych jest tylu dziwaków, co wśród archeologów. I to dziwaków wybitnych.”
― Marta Guzowska

“Sifting with a sifter, artifacts after artifacts after artifiction that was ruled out as planted by some teenagers that were trying to pepper the site with pepper shakers that were from millennia ago, failing to take into account that those items were created less than 200 years ago.”
― J.S. Mason, The Satyrist...And Other Scintillating Treats

“No outsider was allowed in the station except wives of the higher officers and a few friends. Where was Harriet in all this excitement? In the station, taking the train with the troops to Piraeus.”
― Mary Allsebrook, Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

“La seguii, e constatai che quello scavo era di natura archeologica. Dei pioli conficcati nel terreno erano collegati da una cordicella, per delimitare l’area in cui quei volontarii picconavano il suolo, cercando di fare meno rumore possibile.”
― Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book

“When Scottish archaeologists... fall to discussing the weary battle of Mons Graupius... and like threadbare questions, they are but threshing straw from which the very chaff has long since been gleaned to the last husk, and can only bring well-deserved ridicule on their pursuits.”
― Daniel Wilson, The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland