CCTI graduate going on archeological dig

Move aside, Indiana Jones.

There’s a new name in archaeology — Carbon Career and Technical Institute alumnus Dakota Kalavoda.

Kalavoda, who will be entering his junior year at Lycoming College in Williamsport this fall, is embarking on the trip of a lifetime this weekend, where he will get to help out with an archaeological dig in Guatemala.

“I got this opportunity, it’s called an enhanced academic experience, where I can go to my professor’s site that she’s working at,” Kalavoda, of Jim Thorpe, said.

“The one major professor that we have in Latin American anthropology, Dr. Jessica Munson, she is working down at a site called Altar de Sacrificios, which is up on the northern border of Guatemala, right next to Mexico,” he said.

Kalavoda will be working in a lab in Antigua, which is about 15 miles west of Guatemala City.

“What I’m doing out there is basically working in the lab, cataloging items, working with some archaeological data, compiling data,” he said.

The opportunity to get involved in the relatively small world of archaeology has always been a passion for Kalavoda, who is double-majoring in archaeology and anthropology, and he looks forward to learning more about Latin American culture and history.

“Ever since I was little, I’ve always liked looking around and finding old artifacts. I used to go bottle hunting around here. I actually have a metal detector, but I can’t bring that with me, since I’m not doing the dig, but I like going metal detecting when I have free time. Artifacts intrigue me so much, and the culture of Latin America intrigues me on top of that. I love Aztec and Mayan studies, so I’m hoping that when I go down there I can learn a lot more about the Maya than I already know. I’ve always been interested in this,” he said.

While there, Kalavoda also plans to make trips to other sites like Tikal and Copán, and to take in the culture and history of the region.

“I think it will be a change in perspective, that’s what I’m most looking forward to, seeing things differently, seeing how other people live,” he said.

Kalavoda graduated from Carbon Career and Technical Institute in 2016, specializing in carpentry. He figured it to be a practical trade, and a good way to make money. But with the encouragement of science teacher Anna Leigh Conway, Kalavoda began exploring higher education opportunities, and he decided on Lycoming College.

“Because of the good grades I got at tech in my senior year, I was able to receive a pretty decent scholarship. They pay almost half of my tuition right off the bat. I saw it as a great opportunity,” Kalavoda said.

That’s not to say that his carpentry education went to waste, though, as he still works at Highwood USA in the fabrication department over the summers. On top of that, there’s a bit of a connection between carpentry and archaeology.

“Between carpentry and archaeology, there are a few crossovers, believe it or not. Some of the site tools I use to survey a site, carpenters and contractors use the same tools, like transits to find leveling and see the distance between an area and an object,” Kalavoda said.

While archaeology and anthropology might not seem like the kind of industries with booming opportunities, Kalavoda said that the jobs are there, you just have to look for them.

“There’s a lot of private sector jobs around the mid-Atlantic region, believe it or not. With the construction these big companies do, they send in the archaeological surveying teams. There’s money out there, if you actually go at it, you can do field work,” he said.

As Kalavoda sees it, the big opportunities in archaeology are rooted in the migration of major companies to Latin America. Before construction, the companies must bring in a survey team to evaluate a site, and potentially excavate artifacts if necessary. With a relatively small pool of archaeologists in the United States, opportunities are there for those who make the right connections.

And yes, of course, Kalavoda often gets the Indiana Jones comparison.

“Describing it to people, everyone thinks I go out and dig up dinosaurs. I have to explain to them that’s paleontology, I won’t be touching any dinosaur bones. But then they go directly to Indiana Jones, and I’ll just say, ‘yeah, I’m Indiana Jones.’ That’s kind of my go-to, because not many people understand what archaeology is. Many more people have seen Indiana Jones than have watched the History Channel,” he said.

But at the end of the day, unlike Dr. Jones, Kalavoda is less concerned with a life of adventure, and more focused on helping people to better understand the rich history of Latin American cultures.

“I just want to find something new, that no one has found. I want something where I can say, ‘I found this, and I’ve changed the way we think about something,’” he said.