Ten Careers in Archaeology

Archaeologists don’t have treasure-hunting adventures like Indiana Jones. Many don’t even dig. Instead, archaeology offers specialized career paths covering a host of interests. As the study of the past, archaeology explores almost every imaginable aspect of human experience (there are even experts on fossilised faeces). Many archaeologists do a bit of everything, and few work entirely within the boundaries of their specialism. Employers include universities, museums, heritage bodies, environmental enterprises and government agencies.

1. Archaeometrists: Found in laboratories. Many have a background in analytical chemistry or materials science. Their expertise includes dating (radiocarbon dating, amongst other methods), isotope studies (used to reconstruct ancient diets, migration, past ocean temperatures and more) and microscopic studies of artefacts.

2. Cultural Resource Managers: Aka contract archaeologists, they are typically found outdoors or at the bottom of a trench. If a developer is going to disturb an area, they might call in a CRM archaeologist to survey it for archaeological remains. If sites are discovered, CR managers may conduct a ‘rescue dig’ before the bulldozers move in.

3. Curators: Found in museums. As well as doing their own research, museum archaeologists look after museum collections and create displays and exhibitions. Heritage education and liaising with enthusiastic amateurs is part of the job.

4. Environmental archaeologists: Plant and animal remains and charcoal from ancient hearths allow archaeologists to reconstruct past environments and people’s subsistence strategies in particular ecological niches. Pollen studies can pinpoint the season a site was occupied. Archaeozoologists and palaeobotanists also investigate animal and plant domestication.

5. Ethnoarchaeologists: Often found near traditional villages. In some places, notably parts of America and Africa, there is continuity between the ways of life lived by people today and their ancestors hundreds of years ago. Anthropologically-trained archaeologists study the latter to shed light on the former.

6. Heritage managers: Frequently found in meetings. Their job may include formulating conservation policy, regulating antiquities trading, monitoring sites open to the public, issuing permits to excavators and liaising with developers. Heritage is often politicized. These archaeologists often deal with burning cultural issues in the present, not just materials from the past.

7. Historical archaeologists: As specialists in the archaeology of the period for which we have written records (history as opposed to prehistory), these archaeologists frequent libraries and archives, as well as digging. What historical records say and excavations reveal can diverge in interesting way. Historical archaeologist includes the history of colonialism, and topics ranging from traded porcelain to slavery.

8. Industrial archaeologists: Usually found in urban environments. Experts in technology, these archaeologists research factories, mines and other industrial enterprises. With rapid technological change, the machinery and functional buildings of the past are often undervalued and at risk of being destroyed and lost forever.

9. Maritime archaeologists: Found underwater. Though these archaeologists salvage cargo (sometimes even treasure) from sunken ships, they also explore submerged settlements, swamped in prehistory by rising sea levels.

10. Palaeoanthropologists: Often found in medical schools, since they are trained in human anatomy. From human bones, they can establish a skeleton’s sex, age and state of health. (Some also do forensic police work). Human evolution is the palaeoanthropologist’s’ speciality – classifying hominid fossils and investigating the physical adaptations and behaviours of our ancestors.