Understanding History and Archaeology End of Unit Reflection

I thought this unit was a great start to the year, and I found it really interesting and helpful. It also gave a really good taste about what humanities class is about, and exactly what is expected of you. The thing I found most interesting was the dig at the high school campus, by far. I think that actually doing something yourself and not just reading facts out a textbook makes it a lot more interesting. From the dig we learned how to set up a grid, how to dig in layers, how to screen soil, how to use different tools, how to record evidence and mainly the steps an archaeologist has to go through to make a dig. We did this in a fun way, and actually found some real evidence (not just buried modern pottery pieces), which made it even more exiting. Another thing that I learned from the dig is a skill that all archaeologists must have- patience. Often, we would skip screening the soil, or maybe when we found an artifact in the soil we would only dig in that certain area, and not in layers. It's also hard collaborating in a group and following everyone's ideas and suggestions. When everyone wants to do something different we can disagree and argue. Even when we all wanted to do the same thing like dig or screen soil there's only two shovels and one bucket. Something we didn't do that well in was field notes, we mainly took them about 10 minutes before the end of the dig, and we rushed through them. In this way I've learned that archaeologists have to practice cooperation. Cooperation was exceptionally hard for my group, since we were a group of three. From the dig I learned that I have to be more patient, follow directions better, cooperate with my group, not skip important steps and not rush through the less fun parts and only dig as deep as possible. I also discovered that I should be spending some more time with my definitions and that I was missing some of the notes from certain chapters. This proves that I have to be more organized. I also sometimes couldn't remember parts of sections of the textbook and sine my notes weren't good enough I had to go online to study. This took me a very long time and wouldn't be nearly as productive and efficient as having neat and detailed notes in my notebook. I've learned that it's not easy being an archaeologist, and that it takes a lot of work just to complete one project or dig!