As an archaeologist with an anthropology degree in one hand and a trowel in the other I have been where you are,wondering how in the heck I am I going to get a job? I lucked out, found a flyer in my anthro department for an excavation in North Dakota, got the job, and began to develop a personal network of fellow professional "shovel bums" to find out where the digs and surveys where happening by telephone, fax or letter. This was a tough way to do it. And I found as my skills became specialized it became harder to find a job that fit your niche.
I didn't like it, and as my peers and I had often discussed, there had to be a better way.
So I founded Shovelbums.org in 1999 to provide Archaeologists, Academics, historians, archivists, GIS and remote sensing specialists, and CRM firms with a free resource for advertising job in our field, and nothing else. No e-mail discussion, no web sites to visit. Just the plain and simple philosophy - jobs in your profession direct to your mailbox.
This is the first I've heard of this site/group so I can't vouch for them. But it looks like a good resource for those interested in doing fieldwork. Most work has been found by word of mouth, making it kind of tough to break into. Send email with comments on your experiences.
Archaeologists launch major excavation
Stone-age treasures may soon come to light as a team of archaeologists launches what's billed as one of Norway's largest excavations ever. More than half-a-million objects are believed to lie below the site that ultimately will house a North Sea gas terminal.
Around 50 archaeologists will work on the site at Aukra on Norway's west coast for the next year, all in an effort to trace its history before construction of the Ormen Lange gas terminal begins.
Norwegian law calls for the developers of the terminal, led by industrial concern Norsk Hydro, to cover the entire cost of the excavation, estimated to hit NOK 70 million (about USD 10 million.)
Stone Age child's bones found in Aukra
Norwegian archaeologists were ecstatic this week after making a rare discovery at Aukra in Romsdal, north-central Norway. They've confirmed finding bone fragments from a child who must have lived in the area around 6,000 years ago.
The discovery was made in connection with excavations underway for the new land-base for the Ormen Lange gas field in the North Sea. Industrial concern Norsk Hydro is developing the gas field but its excavations are being conducted in cooperation with archaeologists.
Researchers know that the area around Aukra featured ancient settlements, and several thousand items already have been found and recorded.
Those darn destructive tourists again. . ."SCA: Tourism could destroy antiquities in 100 years"
In 100 years' time, our monuments will collapse, not because of an earthquake but because of tourism. Such was the recent warning from Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA) Dr. Zahi Hawas.
Assume that 500 tourists visit the tomb of Tut Ankh Amoun tomb every day, and that every visitor leaves 20 grammes of water vapour. Within 20 years, the daily total 10,000 grammes of vapour will have combined with elements in the stone and slowly destroy the tomb, Dr Hawas said.
"Based on this assumption, the Great Pyramid or Cheops will last only another 100 years and the Sphinx 200 years. Thus tourism is destroying our treasures," Dr Hawas said in an interview with the weekly magazine al- Musawwar.
That's the Catch-22 of Egyptian archaeology: Seeing the monument brings in much needed tourist dollars, but the same tourists also wreak havoc on the monuments themselves (though generally only on the tombs; most of the other destruction has come from rising groud water and pollution). It's not really bad behavior by tourists, it's just the fact that they breath and need light to see. They will eventually find a balance, because I don't believe it's ever going to be feasible to just lock everything up -- but who knows, maybe it'll come to that.
More Neanderthals Archaeologists attempt to solve Neanderthal mystery
40 000 years ago the human race was represented by two distinct categories: Homo Neandertalensis and Homo Sapiens.
They did not differ much in appearance. However, judging by the DNA analysis, they could not have had common offspring. Neanderthals had a completely different skull structure; they were involved in primitive social groups and used manual labor to ensure survival. The two types managed to coexist rather peacefully. Then suddenly, something happened; something that not even scientists can clearly explain. Suddenly, Neanderthals completely disappeared from the earth's surface.
Finally, the time has come to solve the mystery.
FULL FRONTAL. . . . .antiquity Pharaoh's portrait in frontal view
Egyptologists have pieced together fragments of the first known ancient portrait of a pharaoh drawn from the front rather than in profile, a Spanish archaeologist said Thursday.
The archaeologist said the portrait, which appears to show either Tuthmosis III or his mother Hatshepsut, was painted on a wooden board buried in the courtyard in front of a tomb in the southern town of Luxor.