The increase in heritage management roles as places of employment for archaeologists has not gone unnoticed in the profession. Traditional training schemes, which emphasize cultural history and field techniques, do not include classes in heritage law or preservation management, not to mention budgeting and business skills. A movement toward providing the next generation of archaeologists with the set of skills necessary to succeed in this new form of career has become of interest to some leaders in the field.
For the most part, education remains within the control of the university systems in each country, and this probably will continue to be the case. By and large, professional archaeology as a profession is taught at the graduate level (MA or PhD), and, not surprisingly, a professional career for the most part demands a post-graduate degree. Up until the prevalence of heritage management, a typical job in archaeology was a university position; most of these positions require a doctorate.
However, today, most of the nonteaching archaeology positions in the world do not require a PhD. This situation may have resulted from the rapid rise of the CRM field, as the demand for these jobs initially took students out of their degree programs early. Two recent surveys conducted in the United States indicate a rise in the number of archaeologists holding master’s degrees vis-a-vis those with PhDs; this is probably a function of the rise of CRM and the relative flatness in the growth of university positions.
Vocational schools such as the Archaeological Technology Program at Cabrillo College has begun to create CRM degrees at the associate’s degree level; such programs may eventually impact educational requirements for future generations (see Careers in Archaeology).
PhD Degrees and Degree Earners
In light of long-standing traditions about the purpose of a graduate school department, it is perhaps not surprising that surveys have concentrated on gathering information about PhD earners rather than MA students. A survey conducted for the American Anthropological Association indicated that the number of anthropology PhDs has remained static - at approximately 400 per year since 1974, with the number of archaeological PhDs constituting between 24% and 30% of that total. Graduate enrollments in anthropology departments have increased sharply, however, with enrollments in 1997 up more than 35.5% over 1987. Undergraduate enrollments in 1997 were up 78% over 1987. Minority representations in anthropology PhD programs was cited as 15% in 1997, with most of these in cultural anthropology; only 16% of the total minority PhD students were in archaeology. Gender representation in the 1997 cohort indicated that only 36% of archaeology PhDs were female.
However, a 1994 survey of archaeologists in the United States indicated a huge growth in the number of PhDs granted over time, with the largest increase beginning in the 1970s with 244, in the 1980s with 321, and by the end of the first quarter of March 1994, 182 PhDs had been already awarded in the 1990s; these statistics also indicated a growing number of women in the programs.
Training in CRM and Heritage Management
While the creation of pedagogical training courses has not kept pace with the rapid rise of the heritage management movement, several master’s level programs in heritage management have been started at universities throughout the world. In the past ten years, Heritage Management MAs have been established at Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Leicester, York, Glasgow, and Lampeter in the UK, and New England and James Cook in Australia. Some directed CRM programs at the master’s level have been created in the United States - notably at Sonoma State University and Texas A&M - but since master’s degrees in North America are almost without exception research degrees, the movement has been very slow to develop. Specialized training, such as short courses in cultural resource laws and specialized field techniques, have been developed for online and classroom-based educational venues. Some of these such as the US National Park Service’s Section 106 training classes, are completely outside the university setting.
Professionalization of the Field: Standards and Practices
As the field of archaeology continues to expand away from the academic realm and into the business realm, many in the profession have sought to professionalize the discipline, through the creation of professional organizations and the development of codes of conduct and a mechanism for the policing of their membership.
Based in the United Kingdom, the Institute for Field Archaeology was founded in 1982; it has five grades of membership based on experience and education. The IFA developed a code of conduct and ratified it in 1985; amendments have been made and accepted by the membership, and the current code was signed by the members of the IFA in 2002. An extensive standards and practices handbook developed for the IFA is unparalleled in the field. The current membership consists of approximately 2000 archaeologists, primarily working in the United Kingdom.
The Register of Professional Archaeologists is the American equivalent of the IFA; it was established in 1998, as an outgrowth of the now-defunct Society for Professional Archaeologists. Membership currently stands at approximately 1800, primarily in the United States; membership is restricted to professionals meeting a specific level of experience and education. A code of professional conduct was first ratified by the membership in 1998; and a comparatively brief standards and practices guideline has been developed.
Curriculum Development Initiatives
‘Making Archaeology Teaching Relevant in the XXIst Century’ (MATRIX) is a project developed by the Society for American Archaeology, funded by the US National Science Foundation, and was, according to the NSF grant, a
‘‘three-year pilot project to design, test, and evaluate core aspects of a new curriculum based on these principles at eight academic institutions across the United States and to produce a complete set of flexible course materials suitable to replace or implement extant curricula in any higher educational setting.’’
The result has been a store of lesson plans and course materials suitable for use in most colleges, including introductory courses to archaeology, museum studies, and fieldwork, as well as content courses in North and South American archaeologies. One of these courses was developed explicitly as an introduction to cultural resource management; at the moment, MATRIX resources are only available in English.
World History
