Expert: Ralph Salier - 10/11/2006

Question
Dear Mr. Salier

  I plan on majoring in archaeology in college.  I was wondering what the top undergraduate archaeology programs are for a general springboard; i plan to specify later in graduate school.  I am looking at Cornell at the moment as my top choice.

Answer
Hi Adam,

Well it depends on the type of archaeology you want to study.  Are you interested in pre-historic, historic, "modern", North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia/Polynesia? Do you want to go for your PhD and teach? Do you want to be a shovel bum?

Personally, I prefer U. Arizona or Arizona State.  Seaton Hall, U of Penn, U of Chicago all have very good programs but it depends on what you want to do.

I suggest that you also join www.shovelbums.com(org?).  It is cheap but loaded with good stuff.

If you can answer some of my questions, I can be much more specific.