Paid Archaeology Fieldwork

How do you become an archaeologist?

Hello Elijah,

After going to university and taking a degree in either Anthropology or Archaeology coupled with a field school your options for employment are rather vast. There is an industry in the USA and Canada called Cultural Resource Management (CRM), which is basically to say professional archaeology.

Most archaeologists I this profession live a sort of migratory existence as they travel from project to project across the country. Likewise, most of the work is temporary — you sign on to a project for its duration, and when it is over you move on to another project somewhere else. This is a good living if you want to travel, not so much if you want a stable sedentary sort of job.

After you graduate from university and complete a field school, all you need to do is go to the following websites and search for a project to jump on. With the proper credentials, finding professional archaeology fieldwork is not extremely difficult.

Websites for archaeology fieldwork
Archaeology Fieldwork.com
Shovel Bums

More about archaeology on Travel Help

If you want a more stable career path in archaeology, you can get a masters or phd degree and try to get higher up employment in the CRM firms or try to go into academia.

Hope this helps.

Walk Slow,

Wade
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Original question on how to become an archaeologist in Canada.

Hello, my name is Elijah. I am 21 and currently saving up some money to (hopefully) go to university to become an archaeologist within the next year. My question for you is: Let’s say I graduate from 4 years of university, where do I go next? Who do I contact for jobs?

Basically, I am extremely interested in doing this but I live in a medium sized Canadian town (Kelowna, British Columbia) so archaeology doesn’t seem to be a topic of discussion with anyone I’ve met. Therefore, I have no idea what I would do after school.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Elijah