Hi everyone,
Wow it has been a long while and many miles, but I am Tori Hawley. You may remember me from the 2008 field season at Fort St. Joseph as a field student, and as the staff photographer in 2009. Though I am known by many friends and colleagues as being the camera woman, I also have a reputation for maps. My journey in archaeology has gone so much further than expected, and mapping is what really got me there. Over the years I have moved over 30 times, and that is without counting the numbers of hotels I have stayed in as a field technician. I have traveled to two European countries, five states, and most recently the U.S. Territory of Guam.
 |
| Tori enjoying island life as an archaeologist working in Guam. Photo credit: Unknown. |
My nomadic life started when I was five weeks old, when my family moved from where I was born in Oklahoma, back to my mother’s hometown in Michigan. My mother, who has a degree in teaching history, has been my inspiration from day one. During my childhood my family explored over 30 states, hitting historic landmarks along the way. In order to keep myself occupied in the car as I got older and as a way to help out my single mother, I was taught how to read maps. There was no looking back, as I was immediately hooked on history, traveling, and maps.
 |
| A Geographic Information System (GIS) map, with lines indicating all of the places Tori has been during her career as an archaeologist. Image courtesy of Esri Basemaps. |
At Fort St. Joseph, I was often taking photographs, but I was also known for being exact in my profile and plan view drawings of our units. My pit partner would say, “its 11 centimeters, just call it 10.” To which I would reply, “well is it 10 or 11 centimeters?” My pit partner would then say, “11 centimeters.” After taking our measurements, I would then try to replicate that to scale on our sheet of graph paper. My thought was that the closer I get to an accurate measurement, the more accurate the maps can be for others to interpret in the future. This has been a thought that I have carried on with me to this day.
After a brief interlude, I started on a highway bridge project in East St. Louis, where we excavated literal city blocks worth of Woodland, Mississippian, and Industrial American homes. I mapped and remapped, as excavations progressed to over 50 features, ranging from houses to pits, all stacked on top of one another. This was common across the project. It was truly a special experience that created memories of a lifetime, and archaeological reports and papers for years to come.
 |
A satellite image of the site Tori worked on in East St. Louis. Each of the black rectangles are tarps used to protect the excavation units from the elements. Image courtesy of Google Earth.
|
After too short of a time in East St. Louis, I applied to grad school and shipped myself off to Denmark for Maritime Archaeology. In Denmark, there was a lot of new mapping techniques to learn. It is where I started to learn GIS and other digital mapping and drawing techniques.
 |
Tori using Rhino software to record the front of her university courtyard in 3D. Photo Credit: Unknown.
|
 |
Tori's class talking to a local archaeologist about what part of the ship's timbers to draw, in order to record and research their origin. Photo Credit: Tori Hawley.
|
After all the mapping and diving in Denmark, I returned to the US and spent some time working as a field tech again. But shortly after this, I found a full-time position with the Indiana National Guard. It was my dream job, as I had to do both field and office work. I would use GIS for months on end, updating the files for over 500 sites and their corresponding features. I had also created my own archaeology, which grew from a couple dozen visitors to a couple hundred, and before me they had less than ten visitors. That was in no small part due to my time at Fort St. Joseph.
So why give up a dream job, close to home, with fieldwork? Well, Indiana doesn’t have a lot of water for a maritime archaeologist. By near accident, I applied to another dream job that requires a lot of GIS, working on government territory alongside the Navy through a very reputable CRM company, CEMML.
This is how in early February of this year, I travelled through Japan to Guam. Using a lot of hand sanitizer and wipes I arrived safely, only to have the island locked down within a couple weeks. But despite all of this, my new adventure is only just the beginning.
Until next time,
Tori Hawley
