An Interview With Warren Andrew Slay, Part 3
In Part 3, we talk about academic topics. We get a little more insight into Warren’s history and what his future might look like.
RTNM: You were on the faculty of a state university in the Midwest at one point. What can you tell us about that?
WAS: Not much. It was a terrible experience. The standards were low for the faculty and the students. One guy, a full professor who had been brain dead for decades, was a mean drunk, a very mean drunk. That would have been fine if he wasn’t drunk all the time. The other archaeologist was the media whore I mentioned earlier. He was the most self-centered person I have ever known. Those two made my life miserable, so I left.
RTNM: I have it on good authority that they were jealous of your background and abilities. Did you get that sense?
WAS: I learned many things at Harvard; it was the best time of my life. One thing that impressed me was that all the professors were lifelong learners. They were machines; they gobbled up everything new in their chosen disciplines. The other place was very different. Most professors lectured from the notes they took when they were students. They carried in yellowed legal pads and pontificated on the merits of 40-year-old topics. That is not an exaggeration. At Harvard, the professors constantly talked about throwing the notes away from a course they had just taught. They did this because they knew the course would be an entirely new one the next time they taught it. The other place was a 7th-rate institution at best. I didn’t want any part of it.
RTNM: You had a site in The Bahamas, correct?
WAS: Yes. The brain-dead drunk was the primary investigator, meaning nothing would get written up unless I did it. That guy had a long history of digging and never writing. That is a well-kept secret among archaeologists. There are tons of artifacts in university labs that will never get adequately analyzed. Archaeologists generally love to dig but don’t love the lab work. At least, this was true of archaeologists in the past. I hope that has changed, but I have been a little out of the loop.
RTNM: You had real issues with what was happening in The Bahamas, didn’t you?
WAS: Yes, the drunk was destroying the site. He had no idea what he was doing. At Harvard, I was told repeatedly that if you are ever going to put a shovel in the ground, you must first read everything that has ever been written about that area. You must learn that language if things are written in a language you do not understand. The drunk guy didn’t read anything. Not only that, he was giving away artifacts to the female students to win their favor. He was a real piece of work. The fact that the administration did not care one bit about what was going on down there made the situation even worse. I was not going to participate in the destruction of an important archaeological site, so I left. I had no interest in spending more time at a 7th-rate school.
RTNM: Are you doing any archaeology now?
WAS: I haven’t done fieldwork in a long time, but I am working on a big project. I have always been interested in a technical thing called Middle Range Theory. I am working on that now.
RTNM: What is Middle Range Theory?
WAS: I doubt anyone is interested in that, but seeing that no one reads your blog, I’ll be happy to elaborate. It has to do with the integration of theory and empirical research. Archaeologists find things buried in the ground. From there, we are supposed to build models of human or cultural evolution. The process of going from the shovel to the theory has always interested me.
RTNM: That seems very broad? What specifically are you working on?
WAS: Site formation processes. Specifically, water’s impact on how archaeological sites are created. It involves lots and lots of engineering math. Also, I am trying to master QGIS, a powerful software package to help with my analysis.
RTNM: How is that working out? I know older people can struggle with learning new things.
WAS: That is very true. I am constantly learning new things. I take many online courses and always have a book I am reading. I have noticed that I do not have any trouble understanding anything new, but retention can be an issue. The days of being introduced once to a topic and quickly mastering it are over. The other problem is how tired I get when I am thinking hard. Everything considered I am doing fine. I haven’t come across anything that is beyond my abilities. I just have to work harder to retain it.
RTNM: Learning anything else?
WAS: Yes, I am learning R, an open-source statistical package that has taken over. When I was younger, I mastered SYSTAT, but everyone and I mean everyone, is now using R. I also am learning Python, the programming language. R and Python are used in QGIS, so everything fits together.
RTNM: Why aren’t you relaxing more? At your age, lots of people are slowing down.
WAS: I have lots I need to get done. Blood clots tried their best to kill me twice in the last 6 or 7 years. Going forward, I should be fine, but you never know. I do feel a sense of urgency. I really need to get some work done. Some of it is related to archaeology, but most will be fiction. One novel in particular that I have been working on for decades. I really need to get that project done.
RTNM: What can you tell us about that?
WAS: Not much. It will be written under a pen name and, if all goes as planned, it will represent my life’s work. And no, I am not worried that it won’t be widely read. I guess I am writing it for myself as an experiment to see if I can impress the narrator, the implied author, the person represented by the pen name, and the real author. If all goes as planned, that novel will be the first line of my obituary.
NOTE: I have much more from my interview that I will be posting as soon as possible. This interview was conducted remotely, and I had trouble deciphering a handful of words here and there. I sent the transcript of the entire interview to Warren for clarification. I am waiting for his reply.
