Pot Luck: Adventures in Archaeology

Husband and wife archaeologists Florence C. and Robert H. Lister and their two children traveled the archaeological world from 1940 to 1970. They produced numerous respected studies in the field of Southwestern archaeology and ceramics. Pot Luck, however, takes the Lister bibliography in a new direction. Written in the years following Robert Lister's death in 1990, Pot Luck describes professional archaeology in personal terms, offering lively portraits of premier archaeologists and archaeological expeditions alongside vignettes of the Lister children at play and the Lister marriage at work. Lister's view of the past is not rose-colored. She recalls an early advisor's suggestion that a woman marry an archaeologist if she wanted to pursue the profession. In addition to exciting moments of archaeological discovery, she tells of waiting out rainstorms on wet, muddy backroads; worrying that children might become ill far from medical care; and bartering with less-than-scrupulous archaeological traders. Pot Luck follows the Listers on expeditions in Mexico, the Middle East, Spain, and the Southwest.