Have Shovel, will Travel

Article by: Dan Austin, January 2008

In 1935 British archaeologist John Garstang was leading a dig in the port city of Akshelon in modern-day Israel. He watched as his team unearthed treasure after treasure after treasure - Babylonian, Phoenician, Roman, Muslim, Philistine. He sighed with despair. The dig would have to be halted. They'd only been there a month and already there was just too much history to collect, clean and record. It would take a decade. How absurd to be halted by too much treasure?

As a 'slow travel' choice, archaeology is a great option. Unexplored frontiers have all but disappeared. The world has been mapped and photographed. Remote, exotic islands now host film crews and game show contestants. Grandparents book adventure cruises to Antarctica. So why not travel beneath the surface, where a forgotten history of buried, sacked, forsaken and abandoned civilisations awaits?

I first saw a dig in progress while working on an Israeli kibbutz called Nasholim, just north of Garstang's dig. Set back from the water amid scrubby sand dunes I saw a network of ropes and numbered pegs and a motley pack of diggers chipping and dusting away at the remains of a Roman-age town called Dor.

The benefits of joining a dig such as Dor include a living lesson in history and an immersion in a distinct local culture.

They were a mixture of volunteers and professionals, many from the United States and Europe, and I was taken by their inexhaustible enthusiasm. Most of them seemed unused to outdoor work and yet there they were, smeared with dust and sweat, speaking of the project with a fever approaching addiction. After a week of basic training they had become keen amateur archaeologists and their enthusiasm soon had me nodding and theorising along.

The benefits of joining a dig such as Dor include a living lesson in history and an immersion in a distinct local culture. Through your own hard work you contribute to the unveiling of something precious and old, yet immediate and new. And beyond the experience itself you come away an amazing and memorable story, be it about an ancient Mongolian village emerging from a desert steppe or a sunken Viking burial ship laden with bronze and iron loot.

Digs can be found all over the world and you don't necessarily have to travel to exotic, far-flung places to get your prehistoric rocks off. For each tomb excavated in the Valley of Kings there's the chance prehistoric bones or early buildings are being dug up around the corner from you. Britain, the United States and Israel are peppered with digs open to volunteers, many of which are ongoing and seasonal and encourage return visits.

If you haven't had any previous experience, it's best to join a dig that offers training, be it on-site or in a lab. Many digs take on fee-paying volunteers in order to extend the life of the dig, and these fees can include travel, training, accommodation and meals. You may be required to bring your own equipment such as trowels, gloves and tents.

Digs can vary enormously: some projects call for plenty of physical outdoor work while others need laboratory volunteers to help clean, catalogue and record recovered artefacts. Reputations among companies can also vary, be they agencies organising volunteers or organisations running the dig itself. Shop around, do your research and ask to speak to people who have already volunteered with your chosen program.

Digs can be found all over the world and you don't necessarily have to travel to exotic, far-flung places to get your prehistoric rocks off.

There are ethical considerations too. What is the objective of the dig? Are locals employed on the job? What happens to the uncovered artefacts or buildings? Ask for documentation and read up on the intentions, policies and guidelines of the organisations involved. Though individual countries have laws pertaining to the protection and ownership of digs and artefacts, there is no unified code of ethics built into international law regarding archaeology, only UNESCO regulations prohibiting the export, import or 'transfer' of cultural property.

Back in Israel, the original Ashkelon site has had a Harvard University-led team digging away at its many layers since 1985. Thousands of artefacts have been unearthed, including a bronze Canaanite calf figurine and some ornate gold Muslim jewellery. In retrospect John Garstang made the right decision - walking away and leaving the mammoth task to those with the time and resources to do it properly.