Hobby Leads to Career for Noah Kaczmarek, ’22

Noah Kaczmarek, '22, began metal detecting with his father as a teenager, motivated by his love of history and the outdoors. The two would travel to sites across New York state, where they found items including an engraved thimble made of 14k gold dating to the Victorian era, a solid gold pocket watch from the early 1900s, and numerous artifacts dating to the War of 1812.

"This hobby introduced me to the field of archaeology and was a significant factor in my desire to become an archaeologist," he said.

But Kaczmarek thought archaeology was more of a pipe dream than a career option, so he enrolled at Niagara University as an environmental science major with the intent to become an environmental attorney. He added a dual major in history during his second year in the program. After graduation, he began working at a law firm, but soon realized that "my heart was not in it, and that I was meant to be an archaeologist," he said.

In fall 2023, Kaczmarek began graduate work in the Viking and Medieval Norse Studies master's program, a cooperative interdisciplinary program between the University of Iceland, the University of Oslo, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Aarhus, which focuses on Scandinavian history, archaeology, literature, and linguistics.

"I have always been fascinated by the Nordic countries from a societal, historical, and environmental standpoint-and the program allowed me to live and study relevant material in two countries I have long dreamed of living in," he said.

His undergraduate studies provided a solid foundation for his master's courses. The research he did on zooplankton with Niagara biology professors Dr. William Edwards and Coleen Edwards gave him valuable experience in a scientific lab, which he uses in classes such as environmental archaeology and the archaeology of migration, he noted.

Kaczmarek spent his first year at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik and, in June, assisted with an archaeological excavation in Stöð, a Viking Age site in eastern Iceland that dates back prior to Iceland's settlement period. He helped the team uncover a significant volume of Viking Age artifacts, he said, including beads, spindle whorls, and whetstones.

He is spending his second year at the University of Oslo, and will finish the program after writing a master's thesis on the collaborative efforts between professional archaeologists and hobbyist metal detectorists at archaeological sites in Europe. After graduation, he plans to gain more experience working on archaeological excavations in the Nordic countries before eventually applying to Ph.D. programs to acquire his doctorate in archaeology.

"Working on the excavation in Iceland made me realize that there is nothing else in life I can see myself doing other than being an archaeologist," he said. "This is what I am meant to do, so I might as well take it as far as I can."

Kaczmarek is still metal detecting, and has some promising metal detecting permissions in Norway with the potential to uncover some Medieval artifacts-including one on "the property of a very kind Norwegian couple who invite me inside for desserts and coffee whenever I am over searching their fields," he said. You can keep up with his finds on Instagram, @KazDigsHistory.

Kaczmarek has advice for students who might not be sure about their future career path.
It is okay to not know 100% what you want to be when you are pursuing your bachelor's degree, and sometimes it takes doing something you do not want to do to realize what you are meant to be doing all along. There are no wasted experiences. Even if a class or a job seems unimportant, there is something to be gained from it, even if you do not realize it at first.

He also recommends study abroad to everyone.
Studying abroad has been a life-changing experience. It is one thing to visit different countries for vacation, but it is another to live there and immerse yourself in a different culture among peers from different backgrounds. Not only is studying abroad helping me in my path to my dream career, but it has also allowed me to create connections and friendships from all over the world, which I will have for the rest of my life.