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Fall
2000 The
Big Dig
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 The
Cotsen Institute is one of the few university archaeology programs
in the United States that brings together, for both research and
educational purposes, faculty from all over campus who are studying
ancient cultures. Archaeologists approach the field from a variety
of angles, reflected in the disparate departments that house Cotsen
Institute faculty members: anthropology, history, art history, Near
Eastern languages and cultures and classics, to name a few. "Within
our departments, we're all minorities," says James Sackett, professor
emeritus of anthropology and a UCLA archaeologist since 1962. "But
when we all come together, it creates a synergy that leads to an
excellent learning environment."
UCLA
is also one of only a handful of campuses with a Ph.D. program in
archaeology - most U.S.-educated archaeologists hail from anthropology
or other departments. Conducting field research throughout the world,
with particular emphasis on Mesoamerica, South America, California,
China, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Europe, Cotsen Institute
archaeologists have uncovered artifacts that vary from tombs with
gold, silver and intact bodies in Peru to paleolithic stone tools
in France dating back to the Stone Age. Likewise, there is wide
variability in the cultures under study - from the rise and collapse
of the large, complex society of the ancient Mayas in Belize to
the early development of sedentary Native-American culture on the
Channel Islands, and much between.
But
digging constitutes only a fraction of the work. "Most of us are,
as they say in Hollywood, in post-production a lot of the time,"
says Sarah Morris, professor of classics. At the Cotsen Institute,
post-production efforts take place in analytical and regional-speciality
labs.
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