Greetings!
I have a lot of advice, and I’m going to frame it with the preface that I spent two years figuring out that I needed to not be a psych major, so my path might look a little different than someone who started out as an anthro major.
Now let’s begin:
Narrow down your area of interest: Think carefully about what areas/ periods of history you like the best and resonate the most with. For example, Medieval Europe is a thousand years and a whole continent, so try to narrow it down to a specific region and time span (I specialize in Wales 800 CE- 1300 CE and England during the War of the Roses). Ancient Rome is very big and very long too. Break it into political periods (Republic/Empire/Rise/Fall) and geographic areas.
One thing I’ve found that helps a lot with this process is reading a lot of historical fiction. Read some books to see what kind of people you’re drawn to (peasants/royalty/merchants/aristocrats/etc). I can personally recommend a lot of books on England that helped me figure out who pulled on my heartstrings and who I didn’t care about.
Depending on what you choose you’ll end up in one of two categories 1) Prehistoric Archaeology, or 2) Historical Archaeology. These will be important for some undergrad classes but it’s mostly a grad school thing that you can sort out as you get on with your education.
Classes: There will be some classes that you need to take for an archaeology/anthropology major. They might vary depending on your institution, but expect to take at least an Introduction to Archaeology class (which is exactly what it sounds like), and a Methods class (how to identify what kind of artifact is what, and how to record and research. You will probably have to scratch ceramics with dental tools, which I personally hated).
Now, it may not count towards your major, but I would strongly recommend taking at least one history class that focuses on your period and area of interest. It’ll give you better in depth knowledge and context and help with your research skills. These classes may not necessarily be found in the history department, for example: I’ll be taking a Jewish Studies class on Eastern Europe sometime in the next year or so because I plan on studying the archaeology of pogroms.
Field School*: I’m putting this in a separate category because field school is a doozy. This is something that will be required to grad school and for your major. Field school is where you learn the technical skills of how to dig and excavate. I personally loved it, but some people hate it.
It is okay to hate excavation, and if you do you have two choices 1) suck it up for the field season or 2) choose to work on analyzing collections that already exist. The good news is that there are zillions of pre-existing collections out there that someone has already kindly dug up for you, but the bad news is that there’s way more funding for excavation than there is for lab work (this is messed up but everyone loves to find things and no one loves to catalogue them).
Because you might not like fieldwork, please, please, please take my advice and try to do your field school early in your undergrad years. That way if you don’t like it there’s plenty of time to take other classes or change your major.
Now there are a lot of options for field schools, and many of them are abroad in Fun Exotic Places. Personally, I steered clear of those because 1) they are more expensive, 2) they’re higher stakes because they’re more expensive and you are dealing with potentially Very Special Precious Things, and 3) you will be tempted to sightsee and consume alcohol and neither of those things are great to do during field season. I took my field school at the state university right next to where I live and it cost me around $4,000 USD, as opposed to perhaps $8,000 USD to go to Rome.
*Be advised that field school is much more like the movie Holes than it is Indiana Jones.
Grad School: The bad news is that if you want to work as an archaeologist you’re going to have to suck it up and go to grad school, and it might steal a little bit of your soul. The good news is that your soul will grow back.
Going into grad school you should know one thing: most archaeologists are not employed at a university teaching or doing research. Most of us will have jobs out in the real world working for companies that do contract archaeology for construction companies, the state or federal government, or some sort of private organization like a tribe.
Okay, good. You have two choices with grad school 1) a PhD, or 2) a Masters. If you want to be a professor and do research and teach you’ll need to get a PhD. You do not necessarily need a PhD to work in the private sector. There are some pros and cons to both. A Masters is faster but you’ll need to pay more, but because it takes less time you’ll be out in the real world making money sooner. A PhD takes a couple of years longer, but generally the university will pay you, so it’s cheaper and it means that you might have more chances for higher up jobs in the future. You can also start a PhD program and decide to leave with just a Masters instead, but it’s complicated.
Jobs: Being an archaeologist doesn’t always mean you dig. You can do survey work (radar, magnetic resistance, LiDAR). You can do stuff with computers like GIS (I know nothing about GIS because I hate computers with a passion, so go ask someone else.) You can work in a museum curating artifacts (there are museum studies degrees), or work analyzing things people have already found like I mentioned above. You can look at specialized fields (pollen analysis, pottery analysis, osteoarchaeology, etc)
If you do want to dig, you have to decide where. If it’s an exotic location like high altitudes in Peru, chances are that you’re going to need a University to back you up on that, so you’ll need to be a professor. But there are also places that will pay you to dig. England has an archaeologist for pretty much every country, and they get called in when construction finds something old. American construction companies also have similar clauses in their contracts, and if they find something they hire a private firm to come and mitigate the damage of said construction.
Some counties/states will also have archaeologists on hand. Please check out @archaeologistproblems and @anglo-saxintrash because they both know quite a lot about digging.
Some disclaimers: You need to love this work, because it’s hard. Digging is hard on your body, and I know a lot of older professionals who have back, shoulder, elbow, or wrist problems because of it. I also know several who have skin cancer, so for the love of all that is holy please wear sunscreen. During field season you will be in pain, end of story. If you’re in a situation where you can’t dig for part of the year you’ll spend time sitting at a desk analyzing and writing about what you found.
You won’t get rich. The private sector can pay more than the university gigs, but no one is making bank off of this. The other day I had to inform a 9 year old at public outreach that 1) I wasn’t going to find any gold and 2) even if I did, I don’t get to keep what I find.
Sometimes you won’t find anything at all (as one of my professors would say “absence is presence!!!”) and that’s very disappointing. I know of a dig that went on for two field seasons (two years) and the found one. single. coin. It’s a huge bummer but you can’t find a crystal skull every day.
People will endlessly mistake you for a paleontologist and ask you about dinosaurs. At some point this will make you want to stab your eyes out with a spork. Either tell them what your favorite dinosaur is and move on, or get good at patiently explaining that you research dead humans, not dead lizards.
Lastly, don’t give up: I know that this is a long post and it looks daunting, but if this is what you love, there’s no substitute. I dream of dirt at night. I make ooh and ahh sounds at little fragments of ceramics and get giddy when someone mentions that there might be a privy somewhere. I want to know about what people in the past ate and used and threw away, and even though it’s a lot less lucrative than being a therapist I wouldn’t chose anything else.
Keep your trowel sharp and your heart hopeful,
-Reid
