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Fantastic Finds of the Field
Christina's first field experience was in Mexico, just a few miles away from her school. The site, called Cacaxtla, (ka-ka-shla), featured large mounds. These mounds were buried ruins of temples and other buildings built by a culture that lived there over a thousand years ago. Christina was assigned to excavate a mound that turned out to be a temple. During her excavation, her team discovered three offering boxes. Offering boxes often held objects that were left in places of worship. The boxes Christina found were filled with exotic goods like obsidian (volcanic glass), jade, and shells. In one of the boxes, some pieces were arranged in the shape of a face. Christina believes they may have been placed this way to represent the face of a god called Tlaloc (tla-lock).
Hometown: Lynchburg, Virginia
Education: Ph.D., University of Michigan
Job: Curatorial Associate of the Anthropology Division at the American Museum of Natural History
Known for: her studies of the ancient Aztec and Zapotec cultures of Mesoamerica
Christina and her team found a tomb at the site of Cerro Tilcajete that had been looted, which means someone:
had stolen artifacts
had destroyed the site
both A and B
Correct!
The looters did not just steal the tombs contents, they destroyed a window into ancient Zapotec life. The tomb's design, offerings, and even its human remains would have provided a lot of information about how important people were buried.
Now that Christina works for the American Museum of Natural History, she does all of her work in New York City.
Fiction
As an archaeologist, Christina still does fieldwork. Every fall, she goes to Mexico to excavate a site where the Zapotec people lived over a thousand years ago.
I like the feeling I get when I can go in the field with a problem and come out with a solution. When I make unexpected discoveries, the work becomes even more exciting.
Christina Elson, archaeologist