In late-2010, I knew nothing about archaeology. After three-plus years as a senior editor at Archaeology, I consider myself knowledgeable on at least one arcane subject: the peopling of the Americas.
I just finished a large project that I spent a lot of the last year reporting for Archaeology. It included meeting a lot of great characters, as well as a trip to the Paleoamerican Odyssey conference in Santa Fe, NM, last October. It was an occasionally testy meeting with prominent archaeologists whose theories had been summarily dismissed for decades by their peers finally having their day in the sun.
I would have never guessed it, but I find this topic really exciting.
The cover of the first issue of Archaeology that I worked on as a member of its staff.
This post is way overdue, as I’ve been working at Archaeology magazine for a while now. Anyway, yes, that happened. My former managing editor at Seed, Claudia Valentino, plucked me out of the freelance ranks (just as a lot of my regular gigs were hitting transitional moments) and brought me on staff at Archaeology, where she recently became editor in chief. (Claudia doesn’t have a website, so I’ll just link to this story she recently wrote for More.)
As an opportunity, this is huge. I haven’t been able to do a lot of magazine editing thus far in my career, given the explosion in web properties and demand for more quickly produced content. I am really excited to acquire some new skills. And I know Claudia is an ideal shepherd for me improving my craft.
An immense bonus to this new venture is that Archaeology‘s deputy editor is my close homey Samir Patel. We’ll likely hang out and talk music and sports all day. (I mean, when we’re not editing and writing archaeology pieces.)
Journalist. Husband of a journalist. Dad to two. ATL-bred. Back in town after stops in Brooklyn and Oakland.
Nikhil Swaminathan 