Homer Thiel

He/Him

I am gay and I am a historical archaeologist.//

Ever since I was a child I wanted to be an archaeologist. We lived on a farm and my father plowed up an old dump and I dug up the broken dishes, bottles, and other things, I realized you could reconstruct the lives of forgotten people based upon the items they left behind. I received degrees from University of Michigan and Arizona State University. I didn’t know any other LGBT archaeologists. In 1992 I began working for a cultural resource management company as an historic archaeologist. 27 years later I am still uncovering the stories of forgotten people, bringing their histories to life through documents, artifacts, animal bones, and plant remains. I’ve had a blog since 2003 and a couple of years ago a young gay man came up to me at a conference and told me that he realized he could become an archaeologist after finding my blog. That was one of the most important moments of my career.

Instagram: @tucsonarchaeologist

homersworld.blogspot.com