Armenian Lab

Volunteer Opportunities

The Armenian Archaeology Lab welcomes all interested in archaeology! Undergraduates, graduate students, and community members are encouraged to utilize the resources available here at the lab. As a volunteer, you have the opportunity to process materials from the Masis Blur Archaeological Project excavations and see what happens behind-the-scenes after the field season concludes. Interested students can also inquire about internship opportunities that are more project focused with tangible outcomes (e.g., writing sample, conference presentation, public outreach). We also invite you to consult with Dr. Martirosyan-Olshansky on your personal research questions and interests as they pertain to the research foci of the program! 

The Armenian Lab often has volunteer and internship opportunities in the following core areas: 

Sorting Heavy Fraction

As we excavate, we collect soil samples that represent the different stratigraphic contexts of the site. Each soil sample is subjected to flotation. Flotation is a method that uses water to separate materials from dirt. Unlike dry sieving, where you simply run the soil through a 1 mm mesh in the field, flotation allows us to collect miniscule fragments of light, organic artifacts, including carbonized seeds, charcoal, and bone. Volunteers in the lab will sort those small artifacts into size groups and material types, building their skills in identification, precision, and critical analysis. By piecing together these data, we are better able to understand the various tasks undertaken in each area of the settlement, the foods that form their ancient diet, and the way in which they changed their built environment based on their changing needs. Volunteers will also familiarize themselves with the MBAP database and learn how to organize data from an active excavation. 

Building Maps with GIS

At Masis Blur, we identify finds, features, structures, and loci. A find is a portable object that was made, used, or modified by humans, such as stone tools or beads. A feature is evidence of human activity that cannot be moved without being destroyed, including fire pits and storage bins. A structure consists of architectural remains constructed by past people, including wall foundations and post holes. A locus is a stratigraphic context with a distinct soil composition, color, and compaction. After the excavation, we digitize the site map with each of these items and their elevations using GIS. Volunteers with experience using QGIS/ ArcGIS will create these layers and gain valuable experience with digital data management, cartographic design, and spatial analysis.

Transcription and Translation of Excavation Notebooks

We are in the process of digitizing our past excavation notebooks to have searchable archives which will facilitate research and collaborations with our colleagues, as well as preserve the details of the day-to-day activities in a digital format. From scans of the physical notebooks, volunteers can transcribe the notes of previous excavators. They will see how observations in the field slowly evolve into big-picture interpretations of past human behaviors. Volunteers can see the responsibilities of trench supervisors in the field, including recording finds, drawing contexts, and listing elevations. Additionally, volunteers will also be able to better understand the context of the excavation, reconstructing momentous discoveries in the site’s history.

Lithic Analysis and Obsidian Sourcing

Volunteers can work closely with chipped  stone artifacts recovered at Masis Blur through lithic analysis and obsidian sourcing. For lithic analysis, volunteers can examine the artifacts for knapping techniques and tool typology to help us understand the entire life history of an artifact - from raw material procurement to manufacture, use, reworking, and discard. Obsidian sourcing uses geochemistry to establish a correlation between the obsidian artifact and the volcano of the raw material from which it was made. Obsidian sourcing can reveal resource procurement strategies, resource utilization, and ancient trade networks. Volunteers will be trained in the portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) machine and learn to read spectra measuring trace elements in the artifacts. The trace elements are matched to raw material sources, allowing us to determine if the obsidian was sourced locally or brought from distant regions. 

Please note, the use of radiation producing instruments is controlled by UCLA’s Environmental Health and Safety office and users must complete radiation safety training with UCLA. Therefore, this opportunity is limited to UCLA students. 

Illustration

Those trained in the fine and digital arts can assist the project in creating artifact drawings and interpretive illustrations. Artifact drawings are hand-drawn visual documents of artifacts (stone and bone tools, pottery, ornaments, etc.) drawn to scale, typically showing a profile (cross-section) alongside a front-view. These reveal forms, thickness, and manufacturing or use marks in a way photographs cannot. Interpretive illustrations are artistic reconstructions, based on archeological evidence, showing what the site, buildings, or artifacts may have looked like when in use.

Publication

We are preparing our site publication following over a decade of excavations at Masis Blur. Volunteers who are interested in contributing to our report of activities can aid in this process by creating data tables, photographing finds, designing figures, photoshopping labels, assembling a literature review, and perfecting citations. Volunteers can also preview the draft and complete copy edits in anticipation of final submission.