Expert: Ralph Salier - 8/25/2007

Question
Hello Mr. Salier
I am a Junior at Crystal River High and I have been interested in Archaeology since I was in second grade. I have always wanted to be an Archaeologist and when all the other kids were wanting to be police officers or firemen I was interested in artifacts. I was wondering what some of the subfields in archaeology were and which ones were more interesting. I was also wondering which colleges were top colleges for receiving a Doctorates degree. I plan on getting a doctorate in Archaeology. What do you think the best path is to pursue this goal.
Thank you for taking the time to read this question.


Answer
Hi Jason,

A very wise person once told me that IF I persue a career in Archaeology, I must also have a back up plan such as computer science, geology, sociology, teaching or some other field of endevor just in case finding work as an archaeologist proves difficult or if you get married and need to start raising a family, in other words a contingency back up career.  So  that is my first bit of advice.  Secondly, what do you plan to do with a PhD in Archaeology? Not many jobs except teaching at that level.  Most jobs require at least a Masters. and with a PhD, you may be over qualified for real world jobs ( the contingency stuff).  

Ok, so enough of  the realism, ---So you want to be an archaeologist and you have always been interested in the bits and peices of human culture.  And you are wondering about the subfields.  Well how about starting with Archaeology as being a sub field of Anthropology.  This subfield looks at the remains of human cultures in the hopes of infering how these cultures lived and survived.  To build as complete a picture as possible, there are a whole host of sub-specialties such as paleo-botany, osteology, comparative osteology, limnology, archaeological geology, ceramics, archeological engineering etc.....
Along with this, cartography, drafting, computer CAD, and other fairly technical fields which can and do translate into other career pathways.  

Then of course there are the subfields of Archaeology such as Egyptiology, Native American Studies, Ancient Chinese studies etc... And this can go on and on of course.  So, given this myriad choices, you need to think about what it is you want t o do.  What areas you want to study, determine if such a narrow field is something you want to be "stuck in with a PhD",  

I am a generallist, I have background in both historic and pre-historic, Lab and field, lithics (stone tools), ceramics, ancient metallurgy, structural engineering etc... My range of expertise allows me to work in many parts of the world with various cultures with out needing to know specifics about the excavation technique used or where the materials came from.  

So, be open minded, allow yourself to learn as much about as much as you can before you start focusing on any one special area.  You have pleanty of time.