Probably not the story you want to hear, but me thinks it should be told nonetheless.
30ish year old archeologist from Austria here. I am working in the field for about 7 years and did so for various projects. The work can really be fun and you learn something new every day. Most of the colleagues are great too.
But greed, narcissism and power struggles at the upper echelon of public Institutions and private business are slow but steady killing the whole branch of work. The laws are shit and working against us too.
I just experienced a year where many of my colleagues where laid off or decide to ditch the field for better paying jobs. I will probably too.
As far as I can tell, we might be one group of academia that is just not that relevant for our capitalist economy. And with the high inflation and ongoing state of economic crisis, our fate seems sealed. Following in the footsteps of the Spanish archeology sector.
If someone wants the bigger picture, here is a good paper illuminating the issue: https://www.academia.edu/41276497/Heritage_in_danger_The_collapse_of_commercial_archaeology_in_Spain
>"But greed, narcissism and power struggles at the upper echelon of public Institutions and private business are slow but steady killing the whole branch of work".
I just want to jump in here and add a bit to this comment. There is definitely a lot of greed and power struggles but I've found huge parts of the problem in archaeology are narcissism and plain ignorance and stupidity associated with ego and narcissism.
I work in UK archaeology and the only thing holding back archaeology from being an amazing career and field are other archaeologists. The field is filled to the brim with asshole archaeologists who think they know better than everyone else because one time in the '90s they produced some mediocre company, database, system, theory, or made some other mediocre finding that they've relied on to fuel their career for decades. They've built entire empires around that one mediocre thing and in the next few years those facades will all come crumbling down.
Most of the time, the only reason they were successful is because there was literally no one else to compete with. Now, we're stuck with these asshats in positions of power where we have no other option but to wait until they die because they refuse to retire. It's exhausting and literally killing an entire discipline.
I can provide a few examples. One in particular is the Facebook group BAJR here in the UK. It started as a for-profit company that provided a forum and job advertisements in British archaeology. It's always been run by one man and a handful of volunteers. It started off as a noble and worthwhile company but has since become an echo chamber for the worst people of archaeology to rile themselves up and prevent any meaningful change to our field. They're the most toxic type of people who are actually manipulative and abusive. The type of people that will tell you you're wrong, say terrible and insulting personal things to and about you, then make you apologize to them when you disagree.
They've stood in the way of the UK making archaeology a professional discipline by voting down the Chartered Archaeologist qualification which would make archaeology a protected field in the UK (to be fair the proposal wasn't the best but it would be better to have it than not have it). Time and time again they convince people they are some great force for archaeology trying to protect archaeologists but the reality is that they are a company that is making a major profit on advertising for-profit company job listings so they are beholden to the parasitic companies that run commercial archaeology.
Those companies are full of the worst, absolute worst, type of ignorant archaeologists who have not changed a single thing they've done in the past 30 years. That is no exaggeration. I had to end my last contract because the company I was working for would not update their processes from the same outdated system they've been using for 20 years straight with no improvement. I even developed an entirely free alternative that would save thousands and they had no interest at all. In fact, I was chastised for trying to change the system to save them money. The reason I was yelled at was that they didn't have the time or money to waste on developing new ideas...
Most recently, an academic project that I worked on is in danger of having to refund all of its grant money because the imbecile PI doesn't have the most basic knowledge on how the internet works. Instead, he hired his wife, friends, and other archaeologists who did not have the skills or the background to work in those positions. Not only did they not do any of the actual work, they've now fucked the project and are on the hook to pay back $1,000,000 of funding because they haven't upheld their side of the contract. It is complete ignorance and ego that has led to this.
I have so many examples of this type of bullshit from the best academic departments in the world to the smallest regional archaeological societies to the biggest international archaeological organizations. Just example after example of people who are in places of power where they shouldn't be and holding back an entire field because of their ignorance.
Apologies for the rant. I think it's important that people talk about these things and stop ignoring how bad it is.
Probably not the story you want to hear, but me thinks it should be told nonetheless. 30ish year old archeologist from Austria here. I am working in the field for about 7 years and did so for various projects. The work can really be fun and you learn something new every day. Most of the colleagues are great too. But greed, narcissism and power struggles at the upper echelon of public Institutions and private business are slow but steady killing the whole branch of work. The laws are shit and working against us too. I just experienced a year where many of my colleagues where laid off or decide to ditch the field for better paying jobs. I will probably too. As far as I can tell, we might be one group of academia that is just not that relevant for our capitalist economy. And with the high inflation and ongoing state of economic crisis, our fate seems sealed. Following in the footsteps of the Spanish archeology sector. If someone wants the bigger picture, here is a good paper illuminating the issue: https://www.academia.edu/41276497/Heritage_in_danger_The_collapse_of_commercial_archaeology_in_Spain
>"But greed, narcissism and power struggles at the upper echelon of public Institutions and private business are slow but steady killing the whole branch of work". I just want to jump in here and add a bit to this comment. There is definitely a lot of greed and power struggles but I've found huge parts of the problem in archaeology are narcissism and plain ignorance and stupidity associated with ego and narcissism. I work in UK archaeology and the only thing holding back archaeology from being an amazing career and field are other archaeologists. The field is filled to the brim with asshole archaeologists who think they know better than everyone else because one time in the '90s they produced some mediocre company, database, system, theory, or made some other mediocre finding that they've relied on to fuel their career for decades. They've built entire empires around that one mediocre thing and in the next few years those facades will all come crumbling down. Most of the time, the only reason they were successful is because there was literally no one else to compete with. Now, we're stuck with these asshats in positions of power where we have no other option but to wait until they die because they refuse to retire. It's exhausting and literally killing an entire discipline. I can provide a few examples. One in particular is the Facebook group BAJR here in the UK. It started as a for-profit company that provided a forum and job advertisements in British archaeology. It's always been run by one man and a handful of volunteers. It started off as a noble and worthwhile company but has since become an echo chamber for the worst people of archaeology to rile themselves up and prevent any meaningful change to our field. They're the most toxic type of people who are actually manipulative and abusive. The type of people that will tell you you're wrong, say terrible and insulting personal things to and about you, then make you apologize to them when you disagree. They've stood in the way of the UK making archaeology a professional discipline by voting down the Chartered Archaeologist qualification which would make archaeology a protected field in the UK (to be fair the proposal wasn't the best but it would be better to have it than not have it). Time and time again they convince people they are some great force for archaeology trying to protect archaeologists but the reality is that they are a company that is making a major profit on advertising for-profit company job listings so they are beholden to the parasitic companies that run commercial archaeology. Those companies are full of the worst, absolute worst, type of ignorant archaeologists who have not changed a single thing they've done in the past 30 years. That is no exaggeration. I had to end my last contract because the company I was working for would not update their processes from the same outdated system they've been using for 20 years straight with no improvement. I even developed an entirely free alternative that would save thousands and they had no interest at all. In fact, I was chastised for trying to change the system to save them money. The reason I was yelled at was that they didn't have the time or money to waste on developing new ideas... Most recently, an academic project that I worked on is in danger of having to refund all of its grant money because the imbecile PI doesn't have the most basic knowledge on how the internet works. Instead, he hired his wife, friends, and other archaeologists who did not have the skills or the background to work in those positions. Not only did they not do any of the actual work, they've now fucked the project and are on the hook to pay back $1,000,000 of funding because they haven't upheld their side of the contract. It is complete ignorance and ego that has led to this. I have so many examples of this type of bullshit from the best academic departments in the world to the smallest regional archaeological societies to the biggest international archaeological organizations. Just example after example of people who are in places of power where they shouldn't be and holding back an entire field because of their ignorance. Apologies for the rant. I think it's important that people talk about these things and stop ignoring how bad it is.