Are you an archaeologist?
It normally takes three
years of copying from texts such as Renfrew & Bahn
and attending lectures entitled ‘What’s it like to be a
human’ and ‘World of Goods’ to become an archaeologist. Yet
thanks to the wonders of top-up fees to make higher education more competitive,
Innit News can exclusively offer you the chance to
become an archaeologist. How many times have you been on a dig and had a
problem telling the difference between an arse bone and an elbow bone. Perhaps
the subtle distinction between a trench and a big hole in the ground confuses
you.
Read on as we sort out the
trench monkeys from the King Kongs:
A) GENERAL BACKGROUND
1) The
most useful tool to an archaeologist is:
a) a
trowel
b) a
local worker on a dollar a day
c) Renfrew & Bahn
2) Between the wars,
archaeological theory was developed by:
a) A child
b) G Childe
c) Paedophiles
3) The key difference
between a monkey and an ape is:
a) Lack of tail
b) Advertising opportunities
for tea
c) Calibre of rifle for
hunting
4) Social anthropology is:
a) The academic equivalent
of “yeah but no but. Whatever.”
b) Really useful to society.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself for being so selfish as to do archaeology.
That’s right, just sit there and cry for all the oppressed peoples you
could have saved if only you had written an ethnography.
c) For people who like to
wear ‘ethnic’ gear and live in a village where they can’t
understand the lingo for months on end but want to further their coke addiction.
5) What is it like to be a
human?
a) Excellent – Opposable thumbs rule, trees as
dwellings are passé, and your species has evolved far enough to discover
the novelty ringtone.
b) Pretty good –
better than those monkeys who have to sit in the lab smoking fags and testing
perfume at any rate, but you wish that there were more tea parties and bananas
at times
c) Terrible – Your
arse is distinctly lacking in blueness and the last time you tried to throw
your own faeces at people you got arrested.
6) The only people who
should be allowed to present archaeology on television are:
a) Academics with at least
20 years’ experience in the field
b) Mr Bean’s former
sidekick
c) Someone in a nice jumper
B) ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITUATIONS
1) You plan to set off on a
dig, do you put on:
a) A fedora, whip, satchel,
leather jacket, and do not shave.
b) Hot pants, tight vest,
pistols, and shave your legs
c) A sensible combination of
the two, plus a trowel
2) Whilst digging in
a) Take them back to the
b) Give it to the local
museum. After all, culture may help the locals to one day evolve to the levels
of an Englishman, or at least a Scot.
c) Burn it. It’s a bit
of filthy culture that ought never see the light of
day.
3) On a trip out
badger-baiting, you discover some treasure trove. Do you:
a) Keep it and not tell
anyone – besides, it would look lovely on your mantle piece.
b) Faithfully record the
exact position, size, and serration, before photographing and publishing it.
Then put it on your mantle piece. It’s not like most people would ever
see it in a dusty old museum.
c) Call in Time Team.
4) You are walking down the
street when an elderly gentleman suffers a heart attack. You take immediate
action by:
a) Diving to his jacket and
removing his wallet to discover his wealth. Then wait for his funeral and
correlate the tombstone display with what you found in his wallet.
b) Diving to his jacket and
taking his mobile phone and dialling his home. Record the state of mourning and
funerary acts his family go into.
c) Removing your knife and
sacrificing a passing girl in the hope she can be his faithful servant in the
next life.
5) If you discover a new
member of the Homo genus, it should be named:
a) a
heresy and affront to all you believe in
b) after
a JRR Tolkein book
c) after
an ex-lover
C) ROLE PLAY
Imagine that you are now a
fully qualified archaeologist. You decided to go out on the town to spend some
of the vast amounts of money that you are earning.
1) Whilst walking through
your local town carrying one of your many valuable finds, a local SS officer
goose-steps past you and snatches it from your hands. Should you:
a) Shoot out your whip to
snatch back the artefact, causing the Nazi to look around in bewilderment
before falling off one of the many nearby cliffs.
b) Whip out your shooters to
remove him. You then add 50 points to your personal score.
c) Call in the American
army. After all, they have great experience in recovering looted goods in
2) You decide that it is too
dangerous out on the streets so you decide to visit one of the local clubs.
However, the bouncer will not let you in unless you give your date of birth to
prove you are over 18. Which system do you give your date of birth in?:
a) BC/AD
b) AC/DC
c) BP/bp
3) Success! Inside the club
you decide to start dancing to the funky beats. Which dance move do you use?
a) The monkey
b) Walk like an Egyptian
c) The time-warp
4) Your dance moves have
attracted the attention of a suitable member of the opposite sex. You wish to
start the conversation, but which chat up line do you use?:
a) Produce a used tampon and
ask them to guess which period it is from
b) You don’t. You
argue throughout the night but rescue them from the forces of evil, before
drawing them tight and giving them a long sensual kiss
c) Tell them about the size of your
trench/tool
5) They offer to buy you a
drink. Do you:
a) ask
for a real ale
b) ask
for a real rum and coke
c) take
whatever they give you, but only if they accept some nice animal skins in
exchange
6) Things are getting
serious! You decide to leave the club early for their home, but what do you
hail on the street to impress them:
a) a
taxi
b) a
sweet chariot
c) a
battered Landrover full of equipment
7) During the ride back, you
impress them by:
a) Informing them of the
latest theory Time Team dreamt up whilst lurking in the bushes of the Downing
Site
b) Telling a series of jokes
based on how you ‘really dig them’
c) Groping them indecently,
stopping only to give a cheeky wink to the driver who is watching
enthusiastically in the mirror
8) Back at their house, you
decide to use the toilet whilst they make you a cup of coffee. Going down the
corridor, you should avoid:
a) stinking
out the toilet
b) discovering
an ancient Roman site beneath their flooring and thus turfing
out your host as it is now an archaeological site. Archaeologists only have
time for the lives of the dead, not the practicalities of the living
c) the
diamond shaped floor tiles linked to a booby trap
9) Wow, things really have
gone well. You are now ‘on the job’ and approaching orgasm, but to
which deity do you call out?
a) Osiris, Tlaloc, or that god that has the head of a dung beetle.
b) Chemical chance,
environmental determinism and/or the laws of physics
c) Lord Renfrew
10)
Post-coital hugging, and you fall
asleep dreaming of what an ideal couple you would make. You dream of:
a) Posh and Becks
b) Tony Robinson and Carenza Lewis
c) Renfrew and Bahn
Right then, you little
scamp, calculate your score based on the point system below:
Section 1:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
3 2 3 1 2 3
2 3 1 3 3 1
1 1 2 2 1 2
Section 2:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
2 2 1 3 1
1 3 2 2 2
3 1 3 1 3
Section 3:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
(8) (9) (10)
3 3 3 1 2 2 3 2 2 1
2 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 2
1 2 1 3 3 3 1 3 3 3
(55 - 63) Congratulations,
you’ll be Disney Professor in no time. Television opportunities open up
to you like a freshly excavated sarcophagus, and you’ll be lecturing in
the department until the day your body is put on display in the archaeology
museum.
(42 - 55) Not bad, more
Robinson than Robb though. You can still get to hold the
vice-chancellor’s fingers and put on a furry hood next month though.
However, your career belongs in a museum
(31 - 41) Oh dear, not quite
disastrous, but you are the monkey in the evolutionary tree of archaeology.
Consider a career in writing books with the words ‘gods’,
‘mysteries’, or ‘lost secrets’ in the title
(21 - 30) Pathetic.
If it were down to you, the Nazis would have had both the Lost Ark and the Holy
Grail by now, and that Indian lad those weird stones that no one really got the
point of. Consider a career in anthropology