Success in archaeology

I recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success. In a nutshell, Gladwell argues that success in our Western society has less to do with IQ and hard work (though these two elements add a great deal), and more to do with your cultural legacy and opportunities. How timely then that I just read an old Archaeological Institute of America interview with well-known archaeologist, and my former adviser, Prof. David Stronach.

David was always a wonderful story teller and this certainly shines through in the interview. However, I was most intrigued by his awareness to the fact that, along with his intelligence and fortitude, the particular circumstances in which he entered and excelled in the field of Near Eastern archaeology were quite unique. As he says himself:

"I think I was extremely privileged by the accident of the moment that I entered the profession. When I was a young man at Cambridge there were very few people going into archaeology and at the same time it was an expanding field and of course in the British system they had all these schools abroad where you could go on fellowships and scholarships after you had received your even your first degree to the Near East"

This advantage compounded as his career progressed. His earliest work was with Prof. Seton Lloyd, one of the great specialists in mid brick architecture, with whom Stronach learned valuable skills that would be applied later at his own field projects. He also excavated with James Mellaart in Turkey and Sir Mortimer Wheeler in Pakistan. These are the "founding fathers" of archaeology in the Near East that every first-year archaeology student learns about.

Stronach at Ras al'Amiya, Iraq (www.archaeology.org)

These connections, and most importantly the one with his academic adviser Max Mallowan (husband of Agatha Christie), helped forge an opportunity that cemented the first half of Stronach's career. After an offhand remark to Mallowan about starting a new British School of Archaeology in Tehran, Stronach was actually staying in Tehran, en route to Pakistan, with a colleague from the British Academy. According to Stronach, his embassy fellow remarked, "oh, by the way David, the ambassador and I have decided that it might be the right moment to have a British school in Teheran and would you mind conveying a letter to Sir Mortimer Wheeler to let him know that we think so?" Stronach was then appointed Director of the school and served in that position for the next 20 years.

The interview reinforces the circumstances, many out of your control, that can dictate the course of your professional career. In this time of struggling economies, shrinking budgets, and minimal numbers of jobs, especially for archaeologists, it is a somber suggestion (or reminder?) that perhaps we were born at the wrong time or went to the wrong graduate program. It could also be a lesson in "not crying over spilled milk" because there was nothing you could do about it anyway. Not optimistic news for my many friends who are trying to land the tenure-track, but then again perhaps it is a wake-up call to pursue your dreams in some other fashion. Get creative and take risks. That's what I did, and so far, it is paying off.