Any archaeologists here?

[Whatafielddayfortheheat]

Try to keep this short- TLDR I'm wondering what it's like to train and work as an archaeologist.

I'm nearly 40, mum to 2 preschool-age kids. DH works full time, shift work. I have a degree from a good uni and a PGCE but nothing related to the field. Only a-level history. So I'd have to start from scratch. I have NO practical experience in the field at all.

But I've always been totally fascinated by history and archaeology. I'm looking for a change of career and feel it's now or never, I've always wanted to do it.

Is it realistic? What's it like day to day? I have a bit of a bad back, is that a deal breaker? Any ways to train that don't involve returning to uni (as I won't get student finance again).

Any advice or insight welcome!

Sorry should add I live in England, the south east..

DH has an archeology degree and 10 years on, nether him or anyone he new at uni are working in archeology. There's just not much call for it relative to the amount of people who study archeology. Sorry

I studied it and I don’t work in any related area now, but I do still sometimes volunteer on local digs. I definitely feel it afterwards in my back, knees and arms in a way I didn’t 25 years ago.

You typically, if you go on a dig as a beginner, spend a lot of time kneeling down and bent over trowelling, or lugging buckets of earth to a spoil heap and then sieving through it for tiny finds.

The only people I know who have careers in archaeology are academics. Everyone else I know who’s interested just volunteers.

I hate to be negative because I totally get the appeal and the fascination! But under the circumstances you describe, I think you would perhaps struggle to make a living at it.

What I would recommend though (more positively!) is looking for volunteering opportunities local to you and then speaking to people in your own area. It might easily be a totally different scene where you are. Have a look online, see what comes up?

My son is "an archaeologist" - it's more complicated than that, but the description will do. As @CavalierApproach has said, he's actually a very well qualified academic with multiple degrees. And that is the pretty much the only way to make a living out of it. And it's a limited field. Equally limited are other similar careers - museums and collections, or conservators for example. And broadly not very well paid. Out of his original graduating class, he is the only one still in a closely related field, and he knew what he wanted to do since the age of 9. To be honest, it's a lovely hobby but, for all but a few, not a career. And it is back-breaking work for years, and not something that, broadly speaking, you can do without higher training. Most "archaeologists" are actually students or similar, volunteering for experience or part of their course; or keen amateurs who may get lucky and get some short term / low paid work on a site. It's also painstaking, and mostly boring "attention to detail" work. There are few "great discoveries" to be made, and if there is a prospect of such, you wouldn't get anywhere near them - that is work for the experienced and (usually) qualified.

Indiana Jones, it is not.

A good friend is a working archeologist, a leader in his field. He's in his early 50s, and loves his work, the travel, the pay and the TV work he has done.

Getting to where he is now has taken his entire adult life and has involved the support of his (well off) parents and then his wife's support, both financial and practical.

You're far better off doing a masters in museum studies or history of art, unless you'd be studying just for the love of the subject and money's no object.

Another way into a peripheral field would be a library and archive masters.

most of the people I know who still do field work (for very little money on contract) have to travel around the country to chase work, living in temporary accommodation.
Council archaeology services have been cut to the bone. I know in my area the amount of work that’s carried out is tiny compared to 30 years ago when I worked in that field.
I would look and see what summer volunteering schemes are going on.

Ex-archaeologist here; I got a First (not bragging, just saying I was pretty good) and did a couple of seasons afterwards but that was 20-odd years ago.

Most of the work was seasonal so not much about in winter unless you were full-time employed by a unit and those jobs were — and still are — hard to come by. A dig colleague recommended me for an MSc in Forensic Archaeology but I didn’t want to stay in academia (wish I had now!) and the funding was tight. My lovely late tutor put me forward for the flagship Portable Antiquities Officer, but that was on the other side of the country and I couldn’t afford to relocate. The next dig I was offered was in the middle of nowhere about 30 miles away, I didn’t have a car and had rent to pay… so I turned it down and that was the end of that.

It’s an amazing subject and British prehistory is still one of my great passions, but unless I’d stayed in academia it’s unlikely I’d have made an independent living from it. Having said that, a relative set up his own unit and did quite well, but not well enough that he’s still doing it :(

All sounds very gloomy, I know, but unless you’ve got plenty of money behind you for the lean times then it’s not exactly a comfortable living. I garden for people now: physically taxing, lots of fresh air, clients with old houses so I’m permanently scanning the ground for pipe stems 😂 and I get paid for it!

Could you get involved from a construction company aspect? They investigate some sites before building.

I have a degree in archaeology and spent my teens really focused on it.
But post degree I couldn't see an option that wasn't floating short term around Europe (now thanks to Brexit that wouldn't be possible)
I was in a settled relationship and living in tent was getting old.

That requires highly specialised skills - desk based research and risk assessments initially, and almost always contracted in. Recognising a potential site based on nothing other than construction plans is hard. Dig a hole in London, and do you need a specialist in bronze age, roman, tudor....? That hill you want to put a road through - hill or not? If not what?

Sorry, I know it all sounds gloomy OP, but had you started down this path in your teenage years, with appropriate qualifications and study, the odds are that you wouldn't have lasted more than a few years. That is what happens to the vast majority. I honestly don't think you can do this now, not as a career. And I really doubt you'd like it as much as you think. Except for a small minority, it isn't anywhere near as glamorous or interesting as it sounds.

Not me but DD. She has an archaeology degree and her first job was in commercial archaeology. The archaeology degree isn't essential, though it is useful, and you need a CSCS card to work on a commercial dig (companies say they will get you one if you they offer you a job, but she had no success in getting a job until she got the card). There are lots of jobs, but they tend to be short contracts and can involve some travel or working away, and are low paid. They do it in pretty much all weathers, so you need to be tough, and the chances of finding something exciting are fairly low - she reckons metal detectorists find the best stuff!

"They do it in pretty much all weathers, so you need to be tough" there's a dig going on beside a road which is my route to work. They're arriving on site around 7.30am when I go past, even in the sub zero snowy temperatures the other week. Can't say it looked appealing!

This is all very useful. I appreciate the honest opinions, and to be honest I kind of felt all this would be the case, which is partly why I've never done it. I went into teaching after uni but I'm done with that. I don't need a highly paid career as I'm very lucky my DH earns well. But I do need to pay for childcare (as in my salary has yo be more than childcare costs otherwise the family pot wouldn't pay for everything else).

I think maybe archaeology has to be an interest/hobby. I appreciate the suggestions of other related fields to research, and would love to hear more.

Thanks again!