@archaeologistproblems / archaeologistproblems.tumblr.com
they are like beautiful tropical birds to me
Literally..
As an archaeologist who abuses these things constantly, I can tell you exactly how a few of the above are not adapted to an excavation-based habitat and are only suited to the gentle garden areas for which they evolved. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST:
Based on the incredibly scientific data included in the classic '80s Mac shareware game "Scarab of Ra," which I studied extensively for several years... the mummy touches you and electrocutes you, and if it does it repeatedly or when your health points are low enough, you die.
And then the game makes you posthumously a professor of archaeology if you have enough gold in your inventory.
Do you or followers know of websites/organizations that post or gather archaeology/museum/heritage jobs around the world? I've tried doing some research but am unsure how to find I guess reliable and vetted sources, especially since I've never applied to jobs in other countries before (I'm Canadian if that makes any difference).
Hi there,
I'm mostly familiar with Shovel Bums, but that's pretty US centric. Like field schools, I get the sense that a lot of these jobs are also passed around by word of mouth, with people giving their recommendations and advice for who to steer clear of.
When you're searching, I would recommend looking for listings in a specific country rather than just searching for international jobs as a broad category. Also talk to the people who trained you to see if they have any contacts—whoever hires you will probably want to talk to them as references anyway.
While I haven't applied for any jobs like this, I would imagine there's also the added wrinkle of visas/language/travel that you may have to take on yourself. If you're going abroad, you'll have to compete with that country's native archaeologists, so be prepared for that.
I'll tag @archaeologistproblems as a Canadian professional who might have some advice? Anyone else is always welcome to chime in too.
-Reid
There’s unfortunately no Canadian equivalent to Shovel Bums, I think the job market isn’t quite big enough to support a formal network unfortunately.
For jobs within Canada, I’d recommend going to your provincial museum system and/or archaeological regulator department to ask about job postings, heritage management company lists, etc. Do a search for “archaeology permit [your province]” if you don’t know which department that would be.
For international, I’ll second Reid’s comments here. I think you need to look at your specific job skills (field or lab experience, any specialties, etc.) to figure out what job categories you would be a good candidate for. Archaeology jobs can sometimes be pretty universal (excavation/shovel bum) but going international implies you’re looking for a more advanced job that might need a work permit or visa and you’d presumably need to beat other candidates from that country.
e.g. I’m a professional archaeologist with 2 post-secondary degrees and 15 years’ experience in Canada, but it’s unlikely I’m going to get a call back if I’m sending my resume to a job posting in, say, Holland unless maybe I spoke Dutch and did a thesis on Dutch medieval burial practices in school or something. Or if I wanted to be a basic shovel bum in Britain, sure I could probably get a job with my experience but who’s going to give me a work visa for short-term irregular work and not enough pay to cover my flight?
All that being said, the British archaeological job posting site is one that I do know about- it’s BAJR (http://www.bajr.org/). Good luck in whatever you decide!
Side bonus, probably my favourite section of the book (The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere by Paulette Steeves) is this oral history that preserves the presence of mammoths in North America. Folks, that means that this information was passed down for generations, for at least 12,000 years, for over twice as long as writing has even existed anywhere in the world.
I loved this because I had already known about a similar example in my region: the Mi’kmaq and their neighbours have stories about giant beavers, which were real animals that also died out 12,000+ years ago:
Have just started reading a book by an indigenous archaeologist (Paulette Steeves) and this seems like a really good thing for me, and for all archaeologists, to keep in mind as we work:
Just finished this book (The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere by Paulette Steeves) and would definitely recommend it.
For those who were wondering about how she supports her arguments, she has assembled a huge amount of data for pre-Clovis sites and has plenty of discussion about how the discipline of archaeology has spent a long time resisting and denying the evidence.
I did find that she is sometimes inconsistent with her messaging for “how old, exactly.” There are lots of sites pushing occupation dates back into the 30-40kya (thousands of years ago) range. But a couple of times through the earlier chapters she mentions 130,000-200,000+ years ago, and the support for those dates really boils down in the final chapters to three sites - Valsequillo (200kya+), Calico (200kya), and the Cerutti Mastodon site (130kya). Other than that, the known sites are much younger- 55kya and newer.
Again, this is not my specialist area, I am an industrial archaeologist. And there are lots of reasons we might have so few very ancient sites that are correctly dated - surviving so many millennia, and being recognized when the signs are very subtle, are two key ones.
But on the flip side I have to worry that other factors like sample error could be giving much older dates - I just am not qualified enough to know either way.
Steeves’ main argument, though, is that we need to consider that humans were entirely capable of travelling to the Western Hemisphere (North and South America) long before Clovis technology (around 12kya), and that we as archaeologists need to incorporate Indigenous knowledge and expertise into our discipline. And I’m definitely sold on both of those things. I’d love to see more research done on these very old sites to see if we can gain more confidence in their identification and dating!
Ah sorry, Clovis is the name given to a particular style of stone projectile point (spear head, basically) that for a long time was thought to be associated with the earliest migration of humans into North America. They’re shaped like this:
Have just started reading a book by an indigenous archaeologist (Paulette Steeves) and this seems like a really good thing for me, and for all archaeologists, to keep in mind as we work:
Just finished this book (The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere by Paulette Steeves) and would definitely recommend it.
For those who were wondering about how she supports her arguments, she has assembled a huge amount of data for pre-Clovis sites and has plenty of discussion about how the discipline of archaeology has spent a long time resisting and denying the evidence.
I did find that she is sometimes inconsistent with her messaging for “how old, exactly.” There are lots of sites pushing occupation dates back into the 30-40kya (thousands of years ago) range. But a couple of times through the earlier chapters she mentions 130,000-200,000+ years ago, and the support for those dates really boils down in the final chapters to three sites - Valsequillo (200kya+), Calico (200kya), and the Cerutti Mastodon site (130kya). Other than that, the known sites are much younger- 55kya and newer.
Again, this is not my specialist area, I am an industrial archaeologist. And there are lots of reasons we might have so few very ancient sites that are correctly dated - surviving so many millennia, and being recognized when the signs are very subtle, are two key ones.
But on the flip side I have to worry that other factors like sample error could be giving much older dates - I just am not qualified enough to know either way.
Steeves’ main argument, though, is that we need to consider that humans were entirely capable of travelling to the Western Hemisphere (North and South America) long before Clovis technology (around 12kya), and that we as archaeologists need to incorporate Indigenous knowledge and expertise into our discipline. And I’m definitely sold on both of those things. I’d love to see more research done on these very old sites to see if we can gain more confidence in their identification and dating!
Have just started reading a book by an indigenous archaeologist (Paulette Steeves) and this seems like a really good thing for me, and for all archaeologists, to keep in mind as we work:
[ID: excerpt from a book by Paulette Steeves.
[the first part of the page is cut off] text begins "...that did not reflect positively on the American and Canadian nations. I begin my classes each semester by telling students three things: (1) teachers may only share with them what they have been taught or been passionate about to learn on their own; (2) no one today is responsible for events that took place in the past, but we are responsible for learning about them so that we do not repeat negatives of the past; and (3) students have a right and a duty to challenge authority. It is in the challenging of authority that we critique colonial knowledge production and reclaim previously denied Indigenous histories and humanities. By thinking critically and by challenging Eurocentric dogmas, we reclaim our right to think, to speak, and to effect changes that reflect positively on the world. In critiquing Western knowledge production of Indigenous histories, it is essential for archaeologists to discuss and rewrite histories framed in Western ideologies of conquest that remain embedded in textbooks."
[the remainder of the page is cut off.]
End description.]
Thank you for the caption! The book is “The Indigenous Palaeolithic of the Western Hemisphere” by Paulette Steeves. I saw her give a paper at a recent archaeological conference and wanted to know more - she is making a case for the presence of indigenous people in North America long before the generally-accepted range of about 11,000 years before present.
This is definitely not my specialty area (I’m a historic and industrial archaeologist) so I am not yet sure if her hypothesis will hold up over time, but it’s a very interesting and compelling argument so far!
FYI! The Pre-Clovis argument generally is much less controversial with the general acceptance of Monte Verde in Chile dating to 14,000 BP.
Not sure how long before 11kya she’s arguing for, but the general timeline of Clovis First has been challenged for a while.
Fabulous, thank you! I am only a couple chapters in; she has mostly indicated for simply a Pre-Clovis presence which I am definitely on board with, but once or twice mentioned a possibility of 100,000 years+ which is a very big jump, not beyond human capability but we will see how she supports it in detail in later chapters.
Have just started reading a book by an indigenous archaeologist (Paulette Steeves) and this seems like a really good thing for me, and for all archaeologists, to keep in mind as we work:
[ID: excerpt from a book by Paulette Steeves.
[the first part of the page is cut off] text begins "...that did not reflect positively on the American and Canadian nations. I begin my classes each semester by telling students three things: (1) teachers may only share with them what they have been taught or been passionate about to learn on their own; (2) no one today is responsible for events that took place in the past, but we are responsible for learning about them so that we do not repeat negatives of the past; and (3) students have a right and a duty to challenge authority. It is in the challenging of authority that we critique colonial knowledge production and reclaim previously denied Indigenous histories and humanities. By thinking critically and by challenging Eurocentric dogmas, we reclaim our right to think, to speak, and to effect changes that reflect positively on the world. In critiquing Western knowledge production of Indigenous histories, it is essential for archaeologists to discuss and rewrite histories framed in Western ideologies of conquest that remain embedded in textbooks."
[the remainder of the page is cut off.]
End description.]
Thank you for the caption! The book is “The Indigenous Palaeolithic of the Western Hemisphere” by Paulette Steeves. I saw her give a paper at a recent archaeological conference and wanted to know more - she is making a case for the presence of indigenous people in North America long before the generally-accepted range of about 11,000 years before present.
This is definitely not my specialty area (I’m a historic and industrial archaeologist) so I am not yet sure if her hypothesis will hold up over time, but it’s a very interesting and compelling argument so far!
Have just started reading a book by an indigenous archaeologist (Paulette Steeves) and this seems like a really good thing for me, and for all archaeologists, to keep in mind as we work:
Very specific archaeologist problems: when you didn’t study invertebrates and so it takes you a good 15 minutes to remember the word “nudibranch” after one pops up on a dredging monitoring project. Pulled it out of the mud and said, “Hmm, you’re not an artifact!” (I returned the poor confused bugger to the water, don’t worry.)
Additional archaeologist problem: When you mis-identify something as a nudibranch when in fact it's a ragworm! New weird sea creature unlocked!
Very specific archaeologist problems: when you didn’t study invertebrates and so it takes you a good 15 minutes to remember the word “nudibranch” after one pops up on a dredging monitoring project. Pulled it out of the mud and said, “Hmm, you’re not an artifact!” (I returned the poor confused bugger to the water, don’t worry.)
Archaeologist problems: when the archaeological community is small enough that the author of the latest book in your region knows about wind damage to your barn roof just before the book launch. 🤣🤣🤣
ever since i was a small child i knew i wanted to have an unemployable skillset
Listen, digging perfectly square holes is a completely employable skillset.
…For probably 0.00001% of available jobs.
Being able to dig a really square hole is a very niche employable skill. Although I did hear from someone who seems like they're in the know that in the next decade, there will be a shortage of about 8,000 archaeologists/cultural resource management technicians. So, you know... Do a field school...
ever since i was a small child i knew i wanted to have an unemployable skillset
Listen, digging perfectly square holes is a completely employable skillset.
…For probably 0.00001% of available jobs.
Archaeologist problems: when you see an extremely accurate depiction of life on an archaeological site in a documentary, and everyone thinks you’re being sarcastic about how great this is.
The sunglasses. The obligatory plaid shirt. The attitude to the problem at hand. This guy is everything archaeology should be.
For those curious, apparently this is French-Peruvian archaeologist Julio Bendezu-Sarmiento; I’m watching “The Lost Empires of Turkmenistan” on Curiosity Stream since my library offers free access for a week at a time through Hoopla.
Archaeologist problems: when you see an extremely accurate depiction of life on an archaeological site in a documentary, and everyone thinks you’re being sarcastic about how great this is.
The sunglasses. The obligatory plaid shirt. The attitude to the problem at hand. This guy is everything archaeology should be.
Archaeologist problems: when you see an extremely accurate depiction of life on an archaeological site in a documentary, and everyone thinks you’re being sarcastic about how great this is.
