Journal Contributor Greg Bondar writes:
I am a graduate student currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Anthropology (Archaeology) at Penn State University. For my dissertation, I am using a technique called Neutron Activation Analysis at Penn State's Breazeale nuclear reactor to determine the chemical characteristics of a prehistoric lithic material called meta-rhyolite. Ultimately, I hope to be able to reconstruct how projectile points made of this stuff were traded across the prehistoric landscape of eastern North America.
I came to Penn State because it has excellent facilities for materials
characterization. I'm interested in this stuff because, in my foolish undergraduate youth at SUNY/Buffalo, I earned
a B.A. in Anthropology and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. The only
thing in engineering that I found really interesting was the materials
processing side of things. But, being loath to discard a degree, I decided
to combine them in Graduate School.
I've spent 12 summers in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado because my dad worked as a ranger there. I guess that's a big reason why I went into archaeology. My colleague, wife, and fellow adventurer is Elisa Beshero-Bondar.