Higher Demand Means Better Jobs for Archaeology Graduates
Archaeology hasn’t always been a career path that is in high demand. That changed when the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed.
“When I first told people I was going into archaeology for undergrad a lot of people said there wouldn’t be a lot of job opportunities, or they would ask me what I could do with a degree in anthropology,” said Master’s program student Caleb Jeck. “Now, I’m excited and I don’t think it will be too hard to find a job.”
With a $1.2 trillion investment into infrastructure, archaeology stands to benefit due to projects triggered by cultural resource laws. Laws like the National Historic Preservation Act require federal agencies to take into consideration the impact federal undertakings will have on historic properties. In other words, if a federal or federally assisted project has the potential to impact a historic property, a review will take place.
In layman’s terms, archaeologists will have to come in to survey the property to ensure the site is not of significant historical importance. This spike in demand has given students a brighter outlook than previous generations of archaeologists.
“Right now, because of the Infrastructure Act many of our students are getting hired before they graduate,” said Matthew Compton, Ph.D. Compton is the curator of Georgia Southern University’s R M Bogan Archaeological Repository. “And because of the demand, our students are seeing their entry-level salaries go up.”
At Georgia Southern, archaeology students have the upper hand by gaining hands-on experience from not only fieldwork, but in the lab and Repository.
“The Repository gives our students an opportunity to work with a wide variety of materials and to get involved in a number of different collections-based projects while they are here,” said Compton. “This experience outside the classroom allows our students to build their archaeological skillset while also gaining the practical skills of project management.”
Through work with the Repository, students interact with items dating back to excavations from the 1970s. And it’s not just Georgia Southern’s collections that students get to work with.
“We are recognized as a federal repository,” explained Compton. “With archaeology there are a lot of regulations about the collections’ care, and we meet those standards.”
This means that Georgia Southern can accept collections owned by the federal government and other state and municipal agencies that follow similar standards.
Roughly half of the collections housed in the R M Bogan Archaeological Repository were produced by fieldwork conducted by Georgia Southern while the other half comes from outside the University. Among these are collections from institutions who may not be able to care for the materials themselves. Because of this, they essentially hire Georgia Southern to curate the collections for them. There’s room for expansion, which is something that is rare for repositories like the one on Lanier Drive in Statesboro.
“I’ve gotten to do a lot of diverse projects like 3D scanning and working with specimens. We have an extensive comparative collection here,” said Jeck. “I’ve worked with prehistoric sites, and I think I’m well prepared for basically anything in the field. I think the hands-on experience that both undergraduates and graduate students get here at Georgia Southern really prepares us well.”
For more information on the Anthropology Program at Georgia Southern, click here.
Last updated: 2/9/2023