By Sarah Lipman
Digging for buried treasure isn’t just for little kids in a playground sandbox. Or at least anthropology professor Marc Meyer doesn’t think so.
In fact, he’s been doing just that.
Meyer, who has been splitting his time commuting from Philadelphia to teach biological anthropology at the university and gross human anatomy to medical students at the University of Pennsylvania for the past four years, spends his summers abroad on various archaeological digs.
“I’ve been all over the world on these digs,” Meyer says. “They’re absolutely fascinating; we’ve discovered some really insane fossils.”
He says he has excavated and done research in Lebanon, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Egypt, South Africa, some U.S. states, and his personal favorite, Republic of Georgia.
“We found fossils of early humans that are 1.77 million years old there,” Meyer says. “They’re not quite human and they’re not quite ape. In some ways they are human, but at the same time they’re just so far from it — and I love that.”
Meyer says a typical day on a dig moves pretty routinely: wake up, dig, eat lunch, nap, dig a little more, have dinner and play cards — there’s no electricity on-site, he adds. That routine drastically changes, however, when a new discovery is made.
“You get a rush like you wouldn’t believe when you make a discovery — it’s one of the greatest feelings I’ve experienced,” he says. “I actually found a skull in the Republic of Georgia and brought a cast of it to the Museum of Natural History in New York. It’s on display and you can view it there.”
Meyer, a New York native, says he didn’t always want to be an anthropologist and that the idea just kind of grew on him. Taking longer than the average four years of undergraduate and two years of graduate studies, he took his time to experience different career paths.
“I wanted to be a rockstar,” he says in a joking manner, although he is completely serious. “I was a punk rocker, a pop rocker, and even did a little R&B music production. Then I wanted to be a triathlete and I competed in tons of national races. It was all I did for a while. Finally I decided I wanted to be an archaeologist.”
He graduated with an undergraduate degree from Queens College and moved onto to the University of Pennsylvania for his graduate degree in anthropology. While there, he became a teacher’s assistant to some of his favorite classes.
Meyer says he finds archaeology to be one of the most interesting fields of study because there’s so much “buried treasure” still yet to be found.
When Meyer, isn’t on-site halfway across the world, teaching his students and cracking jokes to keep them coming to class.
“I’m a serious scholar,” he says trying hard to keep a straight face. “Everything I say to my students should be taken as a completely serious statement.”
Meyer says he doesn’t mean to be funny, it just kind of happens — which is hard to believe considering it isn’t unusual for Michael Jackson to make frequent special guest appearances in his lecture slides.
“I just like Michael, he’s so easy to pick on,” Meyer says. “From an anthropologist’s point of view he’s a perfect example. No matter how much he messes with his appearance and acquires new characteristics like bleached skin, he’ll never be able to pass those traits on to his children, thankfully.”
By adding jokes and personal anecdotes to his class lectures, Meyer creates an atmosphere which encourages students to come to class. Sophomore Briana Samuels, a communications major, took his introductory course to biological anthropology her first semester freshman year not even knowing what anthropology was, let alone the biological aspect.
“I was kind of talked into it at the DelaWorld freshman orientation because I needed to fulfill a science requirement,” Samuels says. “I ended up loving the class—I even got 100 on the first exam. Professor Meyer called a few other students and me to the front of the room, but didn’t say why, so I started to panic, expecting bad news. When I got down there he handed me a big, soft, delicious chocolate chip cookie as a reward!”
