Expert: Ralph Salier - 4/8/2009

Question
Dear Mr. Salier,

My name is Colin and I am a high school senior about to graduate and have decided that I may want to pursue a career in archaeology.  I have always been fascinated by history, foreign cultures, religions and languages and I would love to go into an occupation that encompasses all of these.  I plan on attending the University of Virginia or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for undergraduate school, but I would have no idea what to do after that.  I am particularly interested in archaeology involving ancient Germanic cultures (Norse, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, etc.) Do you have any suggestions as to what a good graduate program would be for such a field?

Answer
Hi Colin,

Both are good schools and will give you a well rounded degree in Anthropology. I would also recommend that you look at college of william and mary in VA. Since they do a lot of the work in historic SE VA, such as Williamsberg and Jamestown.   This is more European style excavation then that done by the others which focus on Native American and US historic sites.

For Germanic, Gaulic and Saxon type sites I would recommend on of the Universities in Germany.  The University of Frankfurt (http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/english/study/graduate/index.html) has an excellent program, by far the best in this research area then any other in Europe.  

For Norse studies, Sweden would be my country of choice and the main university has a very good program as does the main university in Denmark.

Here is a bit of additional advice that was given to me by M. Leakey:  " Go ahead and study Archaeology but also have a back up plan in case you can't find work as an archaeologist.  Study to become a teacher, economist, social worker, plumber, mason, something that you can fall back on to find employment."  

I am very glad that I took her advice.  You should too.