Archaeology job conditions

cue

I know that the archaeology job market is dead at the moment (along with a lot of others) but I'm thinking about archaeology as a career in the future :eek:.
I've read a few posts about it being an underpaid career with very bad conditions, poor opportunities and only for those with a passion for the job. It seems to be taken for granted that the financial reward for the job is a little above the minimum wage and that people should be grateful to be doing it at all, even back in the boom times.
Every other industry is able to look for good working conditions and fair pay for the work they do. Anyone got any ideas about how this would happen, just in case there happens to be a change in the job market anytime in the next 10 years?

Nebit

cue wrote: »

I know that the archaeology job market is dead at the moment (along with a lot of others) but I'm thinking about archaeology as a career in the future :eek:.
I've read a few posts about it being an underpaid career with very bad conditions, poor opportunities and only for those with a passion for the job. It seems to be taken for granted that the financial reward for the job is a little above the minimum wage and that people should be grateful to be doing it at all, even back in the boom times.
Every other industry is able to look for good working conditions and fair pay for the work they do. Anyone got any ideas about how this would happen, just in case there happens to be a change in the job market anytime in the next 10 years?

To be honest i have never experienced or heard of bad working conditions. i.e. how you are treated etc, Unless you talking about working in crap conditions? Thats a different story.
As an archaeologist you may have to work through the rain, at times you can be covered in mud, last year i did a bit of environmental archaeology and that is an extremely messy and exhausting job, but we still got breaks and treated well.
In relation to lab work, well it can be boring depending on what you're into i.e. particulates or bone analysis, but again i have never experienced bad working conditions and was always treated fairly.
Yes a lot of the work going at the moment is voluntary, but you are still treated as an employee, and shouldnt really expect to be treated differently just because you are volunteering.
In the end it all goes towards gaining experiance and thats what you need to distinguish yourself from other archaeologists.

You do (in my opinion) need a passion for archaeology, ultimately there is a lot of work you have to do, and if your not prepared to do it then its not for you.
As for wage yes it is quite low on average, however this depends on which area you go into, but there is an old saying i stick by which is......
If your doing something you like you'll never work a day in your life.

If you do care soley for money, this may not be the career for you.
I hope i've helped you a bit, feel free to ask anything else:rolleyes: rds experience

cue

Thanks Nebit.
I have to admit that I care quite a lot for money. It's a weakness of mine that I have been battling for years . I still don't understand why archaeology is so low paid. The people I have met who work in archaeology are passionate about it and they have usually combined university degrees with voluntary training and technical expertise to get to where they are, so it's not a Mcjob that you can just walk into. Yet, the last IAI report I read stated that the average wage was 35 p.a. and this was more than likely exaggerated. I'm new to archaeology so I know that I'm being naive here, but I do find it a bit unusual.
So, which areas of archaeology offer the best pay and more importantly, which areas of training/work experience should I jump at if I get the opportunity?

Nebit

cue wrote: »

Thanks Nebit.
I have to admit that I care quite a lot for money. It's a weakness of mine that I have been battling for years . I still don't understand why archaeology is so low paid. The people I have met who work in archaeology are passionate about it and they have usually combined university degrees with voluntary training and technical expertise to get to where they are, so it's not a Mcjob that you can just walk into. Yet, the last IAI report I read stated that the average wage was 35 p.a. and this was more than likely exaggerated. I'm new to archaeology so I know that I'm being naive here, but I do find it a bit unusual.
So, which areas of archaeology offer the best pay and more importantly, which areas of training/work experience should I jump at if I get the opportunity?

Well generally those which are specialised i.e specialising in Entomology or palaeoenvironmental archaeology are better paid as they require a deeper understanding, personally training to be a osteoarchaeologist (bones) but i stress that ALL AREAS of archaeology will require experiance, this is why i have been doing a lot of voluntery work, so that one day i will get a paid job, most Paid jobs i.e. with museums or companies will require a minimum of 2 years experiance by my research.
Volunteering is fun, but its still work, and ur basically paying for yourself to do it. If you really are interested think of it as an investment.
If you wish just to be a field archaeologist then your looking at great competition im affraid, and lowish pay.
Much of the experiance can be done via summer holidays whilst in uni, voluntery groups seem to favor students.
You are looking at in my opinion at least 5+ years of no or low pay, and a second job.

However i will say im very passionate about archaeology and love doing it, i've found artefacts on field and in june will be working on Isotopic analysis of human bones. I can describe the rush u get when you get these oportunaties, that might just be me tho lol.

Anyways in conclusion the harder it is to pronounce an area of archaeology the better it seems to be paid. But you will need experiance no matter what the qualifications, and therefore need to do voluntery work.

Marchandire

OP, I think the point you make about pay in archaeology as actually a good one.

Ultimately, what a staff member is paid is a concrete indication of his/her worth to the company, and no amount of personal passion for the job changes this.

In fact, archaeology companies rely on this passion for the job to offset the extremely low wages they're willing to pay and to keep staff working. And while a company will usually be nice to you, it's still paying you far less than you would make working in a factory or on a building site. And in a graduate profession no less.

35,000 euro per annum is also a grossly inflated average wage imo. Specialists do get paid more, but the average wage for field staff is 24,000 PA, afaik. I don't think that supervisors are even earning 35 grand a year.

So I have to agree with nesbit: if you want to get into the profession, be prepared to earn nothing or next to nothing for a least two years, and probably not a huge amount even when you do specialise.

Pay and conditions are a particular bugbear for me, as they effectively drove me out of a discipline that I loved and invested five years of my life in (not to mention thousands of Euro). I'd think carefully before you take the plunge.

cue

Marchandire wrote: »

In fact, archaeology companies rely on this passion for the job to offset the extremely low wages they're willing to pay and to keep staff working. And while a company will usually be nice to you, it's still paying you far less than you would make working in a factory or on a building site. And in a graduate profession no less.

Would this explain why so many people study archaeology while so few pursue it as a career? I have no problem working for free in order to gain experience. I think it shows who is willing to actively pursue their interests and do the footwork themselves, just as apprenticeships in the construction industry do. However, poor wages after years of dedicated sacrifice and work cannot be justified in my mind.
What are the factors which make the archaeology industry so dependent on low wages? Is it due to external forces, or are there internal forces that need to be looked at? Is archaeology not taken seriously in Ireland?
I hate to sound like a money-hungry git but I'm loving my archaeology studies and I'm thinking of the future. As I said, I know the boom is gone, so surely now is the time to look at the state of archaeology in Ireland and to figure out what we want if the work returns.
I'm new to all this so I would love some feedback from all the experienced archaeologists here.

BostonB

This happens with a lot of careers that people really want to work in. The sector takes advantage of it and/or the sector often isn't that profitable anyway to sustain the numbers wanting to make a career in it. It isn't unique to archaeology. Far from it. Lot of creative careers like computer graphics, design, working in galleries, libraries, Industrial Design etc.

Many careers that do eventually end up returning a high salaries often require a high investment to get into in the first place. Either in study like medicine, or money, like pilots getting 80~100k loans to get trained. They are two examples off the top of my head.

Obviously people are influenced by what they see in the media. But I think the colleges have a lot to do with it, as they churn out courses and grads into sectors with nothing like the demand they claim. They were trying to boost the numbers doing IT a while back when there was a complete glut of IT people.

I've noticed a lot of grads and students I talk to have absolutely no idea of demand and salaries in the wider jobs market, and often no even any idea of the sector they are heading into. Thats a failing in schools to start with.

Antigonus

Archaeology is one of the few industries where a service provider is actively rewarded for incompetence and lack of diligence. This is because unlike other services or products there are no consequences for an archaeological consultancy producing a substandard product - for instance excavating a site in a grossly deficient manner or failing to produce an adequate final report. If a developer builds a substandard apartment block, he may face significant legal action and financial consequences for that failure. Similarly if architects or engineers are negligent they may face severe legal, professional and financial consequences. There is thus an incentive to ensure the work is adequately carried and the quality of labour and the skills are valued. If a site is excavated inadequately, if large areas of archaeological stratigraphy are excavated and recorded inadequately (or not at all) if there insufficient care is taken to collect and conserve finds or to retain and process environmental samples, or if the final report is grossly inadequate there are very unlikely to be significant consequences for either the consultancy or the client. While countless developers are brought to court for substandard work, how many directors and consultancies have ever faced significant legal or professional consequences for sub-standard work? While there are obviously many conscientious people working in commercial archaeology their skills are thus at a considerably lower premium than many other professions. Consultancies are competing on costs - not on the quality of a product. Once the minimal state-mandated legal requirements are fulfilled it is immaterial to a client whether a site is excavated recorded and published adequately or at all, particularly to most private developers who often view archaeology as a meaningless and unnecessary expense. Semi-state bodies - such as the NRA - which have to justify costs to the taxpayer have a limited incentive to ensure that site are excavated adequately and that the results are disseminated. But the bottom line for all clients is cost. The only way for consultancies to compete is to drive down the costs of excavation - to lower pay and to operate on fixed price tenders, which frequently means that sites are excavated inadequately. This utterly devalues archaeological labour. The only way in which this situation could change would be if there was an effective mechanism for the inspection and enforcement of standards of archaeological excavation by the state, which will never happen.

Antigonus

To add to that last point. If a consultancy tenders for pre-development testing of a development site at a minimal cost and - due to incompetence, the inadequacy of their testing methodology or the extremely limited time allocated in the tender process - fails to identify archaeological remains (which we will assumed are located within the site), the developer actively benefits.

It is unlikely that an official in the Department of the Environment will be able to detect deficiencies in the testing process from the report. This is a particular problem for large-scale road-testing jobs, where in some cases consultancies would appear to be tendering for the works as a loss-leader and there are enormous pressures on directors and testing teams to maintain the daily test trench quota. If a hydrogeology consultancy or a geotechnical engineering consultancy failed to carry out their work adequately this could have significant implications for the developer. If an archaeologist fails to identify archaeological remains during pre-development testing, they are very unlikely to be identified at any later date.

cue

Thanks for the replies. Food for thought.

Antigonus wrote: »

The only way in which this situation could change would be if there was an effective mechanism for the inspection and enforcement of standards of archaeological excavation by the state, which will never happen.

Why not?

Is this problem unique to Irish archaeology or is it something that other countries have to deal with, and are there any lessons we can learn from them?

Antigonus

As far as I am aware the statutory regime in most European Countries is - if anything - weaker than in Ireland (possibly excluding Scandinavia). In Britain the practice is only to excavate a limited percentage of an archaeological site, which I think is determined by the County Archaeologist in negotiation with the developer. Pay and conditions in Britain were probably considerably poorer than in Ireland until recently. Note how much the larger British consultancies operating in Ireland are paying their site workers. However Britain appears to have more experienced specialists and possibly a higher standard of publication. This is possibly because large-scale archaeological excavation has a longer history and is more established there, whereas in Ireland where the explosion in excavation really only dates from the 1990s. In addition archaeological workers in Britain appear more likely to view it as a vocation and are curiously willing to accept lower standards of pay and conditions.

The reality is that Governments pay lip-service to the idea of heritage but there are probably limits to the resources they are prepared to commit to a regulatory regime for an industry with no 'real-world' consequences. Building standards and a health and safety inspection regime have a defined concrete significance; they save lives and money and are ultimately of economic value to society as a whole. While there is an abstract public interest in ensuring that an archaeological site is properly excavated, this cannot be defined in economic terms. No one is going to die (nor is their house going to collapse) if standards of archaeological excavation aren't maintained.

While the Department of the Environment appear to have a general remit to inspect excavations they lack sufficient staff to put in place a tight regulatory regime, and it is unclear what powers of enforcement are available to them to discipline errant directors or consultancies, barring the imposition of a temporary preservation order or the suspension of a director's licence (which I have only ever heard of once in exceptional circumstances). Inspections appear relatively rare, except on largescale infrastructural projects. Crucially a tighter regulatory regime would be of no defined benefit to the person who is paying the cost of excavation. It would make the Department deeply unpopular. In any case there is no clear set of standards on what constitutes proper archaeological excavation; it varies wildly from director to director and between consultancies.

Antigonus

Interesting article, not entirely up-to-date but does give some interesting facts and figures about commercial archaeology in Britain - not a pretty picture. See in particular the quotes from the All Party Parliamentary Committee 2003 report on the profession on page 174. I think his conclusions might be a bit muddled and naive. I can't imagine the state imposing a tax to fund an entirely state-funded excavation service:

http://winchester.academia.edu/documents/0010/1622/Everill_British_Commercial_Archaeology.pdf

Farotz

Antigonus wrote: »

As far as I am aware the statutory regime in most European Countries is - if anything - weaker than in Ireland (possibly excluding Scandinavia).

I find your observations on the Irish situation quite interesting.
I'd just like you to know that the statutory regime of archaeology of several European countries (e.g. the Netherlands, France, Italy, Greece and Cyprus), not only Scandinavian, is in many respects stronger and more effective than the Irish one.

cue

Farotz wrote: »

I'd just like you to know that the statutory regime of archaeology of several European countries (e.g. the Netherlands, France, Italy, Greece and Cyprus), not only Scandinavian, is in many respects stronger and more effective than the Irish one.

It would be great if you could expand on that, Farotz, just to give me an idea of how other countries approach archaeology.

robp

cue wrote: »

It would be great if you could expand on that, Farotz, just to give me an idea of how other countries approach archaeology.

A good general source is the Discovering the archaeologists of Europe survey.
http://discovering-archaeologists.eu/

Judging by that survey the Netherlands does seem to stand out in terms of professional regulation. I would see increased structure to professional standards as key for improvements imo. British archaeologists may dispute this on their experience with their standards body, the IFA. The Institute of Irish archaeologists is making improvements in this regard but considering it was only founded in 2000 it really is in its infancy compared to the professional bodies of equivalent professions i.e. architects. By tightly controlling who can carry out archaeological work (site directors) you can control pay and conditions by the simple principal of supply and demand. However the conditions of those at the bottom site ie assistants is more problematic to regulate due to their short term contracts and highly fluctuating numbers. Although a top down approach may well improve their conditions somewhat. Take this with a grain of salt though I am only a student.

If your interested in the French system check this 2009 issue of the NRA's Seanda magazine.
http://www.nra.ie/Archaeology/Seanda-NRAArchaeologyMagazine/file,16857,en.pdf

Antigonus

Farotz wrote: »

I find your observations on the Irish situation quite interesting.
I'd just like you to know that the statutory regime of archaeology of several European countries (e.g. the Netherlands, France, Italy, Greece and Cyprus), not only Scandinavian, is in many respects stronger and more effective than the Irish one.

Could you elaborate somewhat on this Farotz. Admittedly I made a somewhat catch all generalisation, but the more positive points about the Irish system are:

A "polluter pays" system which provides funding for the excavation of up to 100% of a site considered archaeologically significant.

A broad relatively generous definition of archaeological significance, extending into the postmedieval/early modern period and later, rather than a narrow chronological definition of what is considered archaeologically significant. Note the excavation of nineteenth century settlements on recent road projects.

Full open area excavation of archaeological sites affected by development.

How does this situation compare with Cyprus, Greece or Italy? What percentage of archaeological sites are excavated, how do they define archaeological significance and who pays?