No you won’t. As was explained by an actual archaeologist, the domain is likened to a ponzi scheme where you spend more time trying to convince investors to finance your digging through the mud than actually finding anything worth investing in. You will give everything you have and more to the lowest bidder, because all the rich people you’d look to invest are already taken by professors much older and much more experienced than you are.
Dirty deeds are abound and everywhere you go there will be no escape from smuggling, money laundering or corporate interests clashing with your own.
The archaeology profession is synonymous with nepotism and corruption because all the purists are already buried deep next to the relics they so wished to uncover.
You could always work in cultural resource management. Here in Canada archaeological assessment is a legal requirement before any major construction, so there’s always work to do without begging for investors. That said you’ll be more educated and less paid than other trades-people you’ll encounter on site, and that makes all the hard work certainly feel less rewarding.
Honestly, digs interest me less than landscape archaeology, which is a whole different ballgame, as it requires very little funding. You can do a lot of it with a map and a bicycle if you know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing though.
I’m 46 and don’t have the time, money or energy to go back to school at this point. But it’s a nice thought and I’ll continue to read up on Ohio’s Hopewell Culture and the Mississippian culture to the West that came after it and all of the amazing marks they left on the landscape (although so many have been destroyed).
Archeology never ceases to amaze me.
I will always regret not going for an archaeology degree in college.
No you won’t. As was explained by an actual archaeologist, the domain is likened to a ponzi scheme where you spend more time trying to convince investors to finance your digging through the mud than actually finding anything worth investing in. You will give everything you have and more to the lowest bidder, because all the rich people you’d look to invest are already taken by professors much older and much more experienced than you are. Dirty deeds are abound and everywhere you go there will be no escape from smuggling, money laundering or corporate interests clashing with your own. The archaeology profession is synonymous with nepotism and corruption because all the purists are already buried deep next to the relics they so wished to uncover.
You could always work in cultural resource management. Here in Canada archaeological assessment is a legal requirement before any major construction, so there’s always work to do without begging for investors. That said you’ll be more educated and less paid than other trades-people you’ll encounter on site, and that makes all the hard work certainly feel less rewarding.
So, I believe you, but the bad news is that you could replace archaeology with just about any other discipline and it would be just as true.
Honestly, digs interest me less than landscape archaeology, which is a whole different ballgame, as it requires very little funding. You can do a lot of it with a map and a bicycle if you know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing though.
Then go learn and after that, have fun.
I’m 46 and don’t have the time, money or energy to go back to school at this point. But it’s a nice thought and I’ll continue to read up on Ohio’s Hopewell Culture and the Mississippian culture to the West that came after it and all of the amazing marks they left on the landscape (although so many have been destroyed).
This is spot on. Anthropology is similar, except that there is absolutely no money whatsoever and the fights are over community college gigs.