Professional Identity and Professionalization in Archaeology

PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PROFESSIONALIZATION IN ARCHAEOLOGY:

A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW

A dissertation submitted

to Kent State University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Megan Shaeffer

December 2016

Except for previously published materials

Dissertation written by

Megan Kathleen Shaeffer

B.A. Ohio State University 1998

M.A. University of York, 2002

M.A. Kent State University 2012

Ph.D. Kent State University 2016

Approved by

Dr. Susan Roxburgh , Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee

Dr. Clare Stacey , Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee

Dr. Richard Adams

Dr. Matt Lee

Dr. Tim Matney

Dr. Richard S. Meindl

Accepted by

Dr. Richard Serpe , Chair, Department of Sociology

Dr. James L. Blank , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... iii

LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi

LIST OF TABLES ...... vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... viii

CHAPTERS Page

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Research Design Overview ...... 5

Research Questions ...... 6

Working Assumptions ...... 6

Chapter Overview ...... 7

2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 11

Sociological Approaches to Professions and Professionalization ...... 11

Case Studies: Professionalization in Medicine ...... 21

Ethnographic Work in Archaeology ...... 25

Summary ...... 29

3 AN OVERVIEW OF ARCHAEOLOGY ...... 31

An Introduction to the Profession ...... 31

What is Archaeology? ...... 31

iii

Becoming an Archaeologist ...... 40

Archaeological Reality and Romance ...... 44

Summary ...... 54

4 METHODS ...... 56

Research Questions ...... 56

Sample and Setting ...... 56

A Theoretical Framework ...... 68

Data Collection Methods ...... 72

Data Analysis and Organization ...... 75

Positionality and Ethics...... 78

The Credibility of the Data ...... 83

Summary ...... 85

5 YESTERDAY'S PERSON: AN EXAMINATION OF GENERAL HABITUS ...... 87

Primary Habitus and Early Disposition ...... 90

Archaeology and the Romance of Discovery ...... 92

Physical Environment and Habitus ...... 96

Hands-on Learning...... 101

Intellectual Curiosity ...... 105

Summary ...... 107

6 TODAY'S ARCHAEOLOGIST: THE SPECIFIC HABITUS OF THE PROFESSIONAL ...... 109

Adaptability...... 112

Commitment ...... 118

Learning By Doing ...... 126

Stoicism...... 130

Summary ...... 136

7 THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD SCHOOL AND THE FIELD OF HABITUS ...... 138

Training to Meet Normative Expectations ...... 143

Training to Meet Quasi-normative Expectations ...... 155

Training to Meet Technical Standards ...... 162

Training for Analytical Skills/Decision-making ...... 168

Summary ...... 172

8 DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS ...... 175

Discussion on Findings, Implications, Limitations, and Future Research ...... 175

Implications of the Findings ...... 181

Limitations of the Study...... 184

Future Research ...... 187

Final Thoughts ...... 189

REFERENCES ...... 190

APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL TERMS ...... 197

APPENDIX B: CONSENT FORMS ...... 200

APPENDIX C: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE ...... 211

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1 An example of surface or pedestrian survey ...... 35

2 An example of an archaeological plan for shovel testing ...... 37

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1 The demographic composition of the students and staff included in the Ethnographic portion of the study. The researcher is included in the totals...... 59

2 Race and gender of the interview subjects...... 65

3 The age breakdown of the interviewed CRM and academic archaeologists...... 66

4 Degrees held by the interview subjects...... 67

5 Income breakdown for interview subjects, numbers indicate thousands. Note: some interview subjects worked part-time or seasonally and had variable Incomes based on the availability of work...... 68

6 Employment Status of interview subjects...... 68

7 Codes, subcodes, and axial codes leading to core research constructs...... 77

8 Number of interview subjects who discussed elements of general habitus...... 91

9 Number of interview subjects who discussed elements of specific habitus...... 111

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank my family for their love and support during the ups and downs of my academic career. Mom and Dad, you put up with a lot and I could not be more thankful for you. Lyndsey, you have always listened with understanding and kept me sane. Thank you all.

I am grateful to each member of my dissertation committee for making the experience of researching, writing, and defending a dissertation a meaningful and exciting endeavor.

Words of thanks are not enough to express the deep appreciation and gratitude I have for the many long hours of meetings, edits, tea, and sympathy offered by Susan Roxburgh, my advisor, dissertation chair, and friend.

In memory of Tim Gallagher, whose unfailing support will not be forgotten.

viii

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Dennis: I think when people, young people, students come in and they say, “I want to be an archeologist,” that there needs to be an honest conversation about what do they really want to do, and what do they think the profession is. I experienced so many people that are mesmerized by TV shows and movies and they have an idea of what they think archeology is. Then when they get into it, it’s not what they thought it was.

The above quote is from Dennis, one of 39 archaeologists I interviewed for my research on the profession of archaeology. Dennis is a professor at a mid-sized university in the Midwest.

Here, he describes a typical student attitude toward archaeology. Fueled by media images of adventure and travel they want to become archaeologists. Students soon find out that real archaeological work can be physically demanding, tedious, and low-paying. Some individuals are unable to overcome the disconnect between the idealized representation of archaeologists and the real work of archaeology and drop out of the profession. Others continue, embracing a new professional identity. In my research I examine the professionalization process for archaeology, asking how individuals are drawn to and remain in archaeology. I seek to understand the orientation of the person who becomes interested in archaeology in youth as well as the professional identity of the archaeologist in adulthood. I look for the connection between the two, the transformational moment when the interested student takes on elements of professional identity.

In studying professions, sociologists have outlined characteristics that identify a line of work as a professional occupation. The ideal type of the profession requires the acquisition of specialized knowledge and theory through extensive training and/or education (Caplow 1954:20-

21; Evetts 2013:781; Greenwood 1957:11). Professions have standards of ethic or conduct which are determined and maintained by formal professional organizations (Carr-Saunders 1928;

Carr-Saunders and Wilson 1933:154; Goode 1961:41; Greenwood 1957:14; MacIver 1955:52).

Professionals use their skills to serve to the wider community rather than for monetary gain, and they have some degree of autonomy over how their profession is practiced (Greenwood 1957:12-

13; MacIver 1955:51-53; Parsons 1939:56-57; Vollmer and Mills 1962:26-27) Professionals also employ their expertise to assess or manage risk or uncertainty (Evetts 2013:781).

Professionalization is the process of developing occupational competence, both technical and theoretical, and professional identity. It often involves earning credentials which serve as a marker of one’s professional membership (Freidson 1986). Professionalization and professional identity have been studied by sociologists seeking to understand the acquisition of expert knowledge and the way that expertise is leveraged socially, culturally, and economically

(Freidson 1970, 1986). Entry into a profession draws a line between the amateur and the expert, which is a distinction of both technical knowledge and social prestige (Freidson 1986:24).

Sociological work on professionalization comes largely out of the sociology of medicine, where scholars have studies the processes of becoming health practitioners (particularly doctors) (see

Becker 1961; Bosk 1979; Chambliss 1986; Fox 1957; Katz-Rothman 1983; Yeols and Claire

1989). Medical occupations fulfill most or all of the requirements for professions noted above and are therefore ideal subjects of study.

There are two distinct strands to my research, both of which contribute to the existing literature on professions. The first line of my research is an examination of the development of professional identity and is drawn from interviews I conducted with professional academic and

CRM archaeologists. Here, I am interested in understanding how people come to the professionalization process, that is, what are the factors of their disposition, background, and general worldview that lead them to a specific profession? The second focuses on my ethnographic work at an archaeological field school, where I look at the way students acquire elements of an archaeological identity through a professionalizing experience. As individuals become professionalized, I want to know if their worldview is reaffirmed or reoriented as they become experts in their chosen field. What is the resulting professional identity, and how is that maintained? My research therefore fills in a gap in the sociological literature by detailing the professionalization of archaeologists. I look not at how archaeologists go about their work or how they specifically practice archaeology, but at how they come to and remain in their profession. It also offers a new view on the formation of professional identity by examining how youthful interest is transformed by a professionalizing experience, the archaeological field school, into a specific orientation to archaeology and archaeological work.

I chose to focus on archaeology for a number of reasons. First, archaeology can be conceptualized as a profession based on the criteria listed above. It requires specialized technical and theoretical knowledge that must be learned through an extensive educational and training process. There are several formal professional organizations, such as the Archaeological

Institute of America, the Society for American Archaeology, and the Society for Historical

Archaeology, all of which have standards of practice and ethical behavior. Archaeologists assess the unknown, the uncovered material record, and design research to minimize its destruction

3 while maximizing information recovery. As such, archaeologists work to be good stewards of the material record of the human past, a motivation that serves a public good.

I also chose archaeology because unlike medical, legal, or religious professions, the credentialing system is somewhat ambiguous. In the United States, archaeologists generally work in either academia, at universities or museums, or in cultural resource management (CRM) positions. Most full-time (or tenured) archaeological positions in academia require a doctoral degree, especially jobs in college or university departments. Cultural resource management positions involve assessing the value of archaeological materials in accordance with federal historic preservation or environmental laws. Development or construction projects using federal money, land, or permits require environmental assessment on a number of levels (biological, ecological, architectural, and archaeological, for example). The Code of Federal Regulations

(Title 36, Part 61, Appendix A) requires that principle investigators for CRM projects possess a master’s degree in anthropology, archaeology, or a related field. Possession of a tertiary degree is the only real credential an academic or CRM archaeologist must have, which leads me to wonder if the lack of a formalized, uniform system of qualification affects professional identity.

Finally, I studied archaeology because I have an insider’s view on the profession. I hold a master’s degree in archaeology and I have worked as a professional archaeologist in both academic and CRM settings. I was an adjunct lecturer at a mid-sized university for six years and a staff archaeologist at a government agency for three years. I continue to practice archaeology and am occasionally employed to work for state or local agencies on a part-time or seasonal basis. I have conducted academic and CRM fieldwork, written reports, and instructed students both in and out of the field. My background gives me insight into the practice of archaeology in academia and CRM. It also made it possible for me to engage in ethnographic study in a

4 physically and technically demanding field school. Finally, I was able to recruit archaeologists into my study by taking advantage of professional networks I had developed over my years of work.

Research Design Overview

I conducted qualitative research in two phases from 2014 to 2015. The first phase was participant-observation at an archaeological field school in the summer of 2014. I was at the field school a total of seven weeks, five of which were spent conducting archaeological fieldwork with students. I acted as both an archaeological team leader, training small groups of four to six students every day in the field, and a sociological ethnographer, taking notes on actors, settings, and situations. During the fall of 2014 and the spring of 2015 I completed the second phase of my research, in-depth interviews. I interviewed 21 of the 29 participants I had observed at the field school, 18 professional CRM archaeologists, and 21 academic archaeologists.

I used a modified grounded theory framework in my research, meaning that I took an inductive approach to analyzing my data but did use existing theory to understand the themes brought to light by my subjects. Theoretical sampling helped me refine the concepts I saw emerging from my data, particularly themes relating to professionalization and professional identity. Initial coding showed that my subjects considered a wide array of skills and norms to be important for archaeological work, and that a range of experiences had sparked their initial interest in archaeology. Axial coding revealed underlying common characteristics and dispositions which had led my subjects to careers in archaeology and which had been transformed into a professional archaeological identity. I found that these emerging concepts

5 made sense within Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, or the “transposable dispositions” which structure and are structured by our physical and social environments (1990:53).

Research Questions

As I came to understand the way my subjects conceptualized archaeology and professional identity, my research questions took shape. To understand how and why individuals become professional archaeologists, I ask the following:

1. What orients individuals toward the profession of archaeology? 2. How does one identify as an archaeologist? How is professional identity maintained? 3. What are the moments or experiences that transform the individual mentally, physically, and socially into a professional archaeologist?

Applying Bourdieu’s (1990) concept of habitus, I examine the general habitus of the individual who has become a professional archaeologist. I ask how general habitus informs a specific professional habitus, and what the characteristics of that specific habitus are. Finally, I look at how general habitus is transformed into specific habitus by observing a professionalizing archaeological experience: the field school.

Working Assumptions

There are three basic assumptions which underlie my work, all of which are informed by my background in both sociology and archaeology. I list them here in the interests of outlining my general understandings about the structure of the phenomena I studied, archaeology and professions. The first assumption is that archaeology is a profession and that as such, its practitioners go through a process of professionalization. Above, I outline how archaeology can be conceptualized as a profession, based on characteristics delineated in sociological literature.

The second assumption is that some part of the professionalization process occurs when a novice

6 engages in archaeological fieldwork. In my research I studied an archaeological field school designed to train students in archaeological technique and give them experience working on a research project. I assume that during the field school experience, students begin to internalize a professional identity and start to see themselves as novice professionals rather than uninformed students. The third assumption is that archaeologists, as members of a profession, have an underlying professional identity. In conducting interviews with professional archaeologists, I asked what skills they felt were necessary for archaeological practice, when they first felt like

“real” archaeologists, and how archaeology should be learned. My subjects outlined numerous skills, technical and normative, that they felt were essential for archaeological practice. I assume that their responses are indicative of a core professional archaeological identity which I was able to identify through analysis of my data.

Chapter Overview

The next three chapters of this dissertation set the stage for my research and findings.

Chapter 2: Literature Review is a review of the relevant sociological literature on professions.

Once I have discussed the sociological definition of a profession I am able to demonstrate that archaeology can be considered a profession in its own right. I then present literature on professionalization as well as a set of ethnographic works which focus on archaeological fieldwork. Case studies in professionalization give me insight on the process of moving from being a novice or initiate to being a practicing professional. Ethnographic work on archaeological sites shows how researchers have been able to study group processes on archaeological research projects or field schools. I find that my own study has a place in the existing literature on professions, as it is an examination of the way that people enter into professional archaeology.

In Chapter 3: An Overview of Archaeology I provide background information about archaeology as a discipline and a profession. I present examples of archaeological fieldwork to give the reader a sense of the physical demands of archaeology. Professional credentialing is also discussed and I examine the interplay between education, experience, and professional identity in archaeology. Finally, I give an overview of the history of archaeology in the United

States and contrast the realities of archaeological practice with the idealized adventurer- archaeologist created in popular media. Chapter 3 offers context for my research as I explore the process by which an initiate in archaeology becomes a professional. It also allows me to understand the effects that cultural depictions of archaeological work have on individuals interested in archaeology as a career.

In Chapter 4: Methods, I describe collection and analysis of my data and the theoretical approach I took. My research occurred in two phases: ethnographic participant-observation at an archaeological field school and in-depth interviews with the field school participants and professional archaeologists. I provide demographic information about the samples for each phase of my study and outline the setting of the ethnographic research. I also present my theoretical framework, modified grounded theory, and explain how I used an inductive approach to my initial data analysis followed by theoretical sampling to refine categories emerging from my data. Concepts relating to extant theory, particularly Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, became apparent in the ethnographic and interview data. I also acknowledge my positionality as a researcher and a professional archaeologist and discuss how my inside knowledge of archaeology affected my research. Being an archaeologist allowed me to conduct participant- observation in a physically demanding setting, and to develop rapport with both the field school

8 participants and my interview subjects. My methods yielded rich data from which to extrapolate meaningful information on the professionalization process in archaeology.

In Chapters 5, 6, and 7 I present the findings from my research. In Chapter 5:

Yesterday’s Person: An Examination of General Habitus, I focus on the interviews with professional archaeologists. In my interviews I asked subjects how they first became interested in archaeology, which led to discussions about their first encounters with archaeological materials. Some lived in areas where archaeological materials were extant, other saw ancient objects displayed in museums, and still others recalled popular media which acquainted them with archaeology. My interview subjects, when asked about their initial interest in archaeology, also talked about the characteristics they possessed as children or young adults which led them to an interest in archaeology: they loved being outdoors, they were fascinated by objects or collecting, they were interested in a wide range of subjects, they were attracted to the mysteries of the past. I realized they were telling me about the general orientation that had motivated them to pursue archaeology later in life, in other words, their general habitus. I identified four main aspects of the general habitus of my subjects that led them to archaeology as a profession: fascination with the romance of archaeology, physical interaction with archaeological materials, a preference for hands-on learning, and intellectual curiosity. Their general habitus formed a foundation for the specific habitus of the archaeologist.

In Chapter 6: Today’s Archaeologist: The Specific Habitus of the Professional, I discuss the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist, and how the orientation of the professional archaeologist relates back to the general habitus formed in childhood. Characteristics of the specific habitus emerged when I asked my subjects how archaeology is best learned, what skills archaeologists should possess, whether or not people are adequately prepared to do

9 archaeological work in their education, and when they (my subjects) first felt like “real” archaeologists. As my interviewees answered these questions, I found they were really telling me what it means to mentally and physically be a professional archaeologist. There were four main characteristics of the specific habitus of the archaeologist: adaptability, commitment, the ability to learn by doing, and stoicism. I found that the general habitus of the children they were connected with the specific habitus of the professionals they had become.

In Chapter 7: The Archaeological Field and the Field of Habitus I present my ethnographic data. It is here that the transformation from general to specific habitus takes place.

The purpose of the archaeological field school is to train students in archaeological methods and to give them experience conducting fieldwork. I find that the archaeological field is what

Bourdieu called the cultural field, or the venue in which habitus is produced through the interaction of actors, institutions, and the physical environment (Bourdieu 1990:66). Habitus seemed to be shaped by the training techniques employed at the field school I observed.

Students were trained to meet the normative expectations of the field school staff (i.e. work quickly and efficiently, respect the hierarchy of command, follow directions) at the same time they were being trained to meet the technical and analytical expectations of conducting fieldwork. The training on the field school oriented students to the realities of archaeological practice and transformed them, in attitude and ability, from enthusiastic students to novice archaeologists.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

In my research I examine the profession of archaeology. Sociologists have long been interested in professional formation and identity, thus my work fits within an existing body of sociological work on professions. In this chapter I give a brief introduction to the sociological literature on professions, outlining the ways that scholars have viewed professions, professional status, and the process of professionalization. I will discuss the characteristics considered to be the hallmarks of a profession, such as a code of ethics, formal associations, and a specialized base of knowledge and theory. I will also examine archaeology and discuss the characteristics that categorize it as a profession. I will conceptualize archaeology as a profession requiring formal education, extensive training, and expert knowledge. Case studies in medical sociology on the professionalization of doctors provide me with insight into the process of becoming a professional, while ethnographic works on archaeologists give me an understanding of the way that scholars have studied field school experiences. While new literature will be introduced in the process of the data analysis of my research, the following summary of the literature on professions helps me place my own work within a wider sociological context.

Sociological Approaches to Professions and Professionalization

The Historic Development of Professions

The modern conception of professions was borne out of the economic and political changes of the 18th and 19th centuries. In The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim points out

11 that a shift from the feudalistic arrangement of the medieval period to the market economy of the industrialized era caused changes in every aspect of social relationships. Prior to modernity social cohesion was mechanical, meaning that people did not act on their own interests, but instead were guided by a collective conscience which superseded their own individual needs or wants (Durkheim [1893] 2013). Social solidarity was based on familial or kinship relations, unconcerned with personal rights, and tied to small geographic communities (Durkheim [1893]

2013). Organic solidarity emerged along with the complex division of labor and interdependence of the divided labor force that accompanied industrialization. In organic solidarity, people must think more individualistically about what specific knowledge is necessary for their job, thus laying the groundwork for occupational specialization (Durkheim [1893]

2013).

For Durkheim, the move toward occupations specialization also represented the passing of the intellectual generalist: “[t]he time has passed when the perfect man was he who appeared interested in everything without attaching himself exclusively to anything…[t]his general culture, formerly lavishly praised, now appears to us a loose and flabby discipline” (Durkheim

[1893] 2013:42-43). To have no intellectual or occupational direction, he explains, seems anti- social, as society now demands individuals be productive rather than “complete” (Durkheim

[1893] 2013:43). Occupational organizations, often translated in Durkheim’s work as

“corporations” but which might be more accurately termed “guilds” or “professional associations” emerged as intermediaries between occupational groups and broader society

(Vollmer and Mills 1966). Occupational groups, Durkheim explains, must always have a relationship with the political and economic framework of their society because their members must operate within the laws and interests of that framework (Durkheim [1893] 2013).

Carr-Saunders (1928) illustrates the way that occupational groups and the political economy are intertwined. He notes that although law, divinity, and medicine were considered the great professions of the 18th century, new ones were rapidly emerging (Carr-Saunders

1928:3). The implementation of acts such as the Apothecaries Act of 1815, the Medical Act of

1858, the Pharmacy Act of 1852, and the Dental Act of 1878 indicates that new occupations were emerging which were infringing on the knowledge base of the physicians and which needed legal regulation (Carr-Saunders 1928:3). Professional associations also appeared, allowing members a social forum in which they could discuss problems common to the practice of their work. The goal of many associations was also to improve the standards of practice, as membership often relied on evidence of experience and competence in employing professional skills and knowledge (Carr-Saunders and Wilson 1933:156). Institutes such as the Surveyor’s

Institute and the Institute of Chartered Accountants were established to pass on knowledge and standards and maintain ethics and exclusivity (Carr-Saunders 1928:3; Carr-Saunders and Wilson

1933:157). The Institute of Chartered Accountants, for example, required that its members refrain from “mixing the pursuit of any other business with the discharge of the higher duties devolving upon them as Public Accountants…” (Carr-Saunders and Wilson 1933:157).

Characteristics of a Profession

What makes an occupation a profession? A profession, in its ideal type, has several key features. First of all, a profession is set apart from more ordinary forms of work by the specialized technical and theoretical skill set required by its practitioners. The characteristic of the knowledge base that sets the professional apart from the non-professional is the ability to apply a theory of practice to the application of her trade (Greenwood 1957:11). Second, professional knowledge and skill is acquired through specialized training and education (Caplow

1954:20-21; Evetts 2013:781). Third, professions must be governed by formal professional associations which hold members to ethical standards of practice (Carr-Saunders and Wilson

1933:154; Goode 1961:41; Greenwood 1957:14; MacIver 1955:52). Formal professional associations are organized bodies which allow for instruction, training, certification, or qualification to indicate competence (Carr-Saunders 1928). Fourth, professions have some degree of autonomy in ensuring that theoretical or conceptual knowledge is transformed into practice across a wide range of individuals (Greenwood 1957:12). Fifth, professionals are ideally to use their skills in service to the wider community rather than for personal or monetary gain (Greenwood 1957:13; MacIver 1955:51-53; Parsons 1939:56-57; Vollmer and Mills

1962:26-27). Finally, professionals use expert knowledge to assess or mitigate risk and uncertainty (Evetts 2013:781). Evetts explains that “professionals are extensively engaged in dealing with risk, with risk assessment and, through the use of expert knowledge, enabling customers and clients to deal with uncertainty,” (Evetts 2013:781).

The characteristics of a profession outlined here suggest several things about professions as social constructs and how we view professions and professionals. First is the idea that there are professionals and there are amateurs and that professionals are required to operate with some level of competence while amateurs are not. “The amateur is a dabbler at a mere pastime…[while] the professional is dedicated to practice and refinement of his or her skill,”

(Freidson 1986:24). Professional membership, Freidson notes, is associated with commitment to the cultivation of a set of skills and a body of knowledge (1986:24). Moreover, the professional is committed to maintaining or advancing their skills and knowledge, as their status is a continuous dynamic state rather than as a static end goal (Abbott 1988:4). The status

“professional” as applied to an individual is not permanent, and may change over time as a

14 person gains or loses competence or certification, thus the individual must work to retain his status (Millerson 1964:9). Being a professional indicates that a person possesses a high level of accomplishment at applying his knowledge and skills, such that he can earn their living from that application. An amateur may pursue their interests with enthusiasm, but they are not held to a standard of practice or expected to have the same level of expertise as a professional. (Freidson

1986:23-24)

Another assumption is that professionals occupy a position of intellectual and technical dominance over some range of occupations, and they should operate with some sense of autonomy from both other professions and from overarching economic or political influences.

There is a specific theoretical and practical knowledge base from which professionals must draw, one that should be taught with some level of both exclusivity and uniformity. According to

Freidson (1970), the most important and distinct aspect of a profession is its autonomy, which he characterizes as the right of the professional organizations to control professional membership and practice (p.71-72). Standards of training and criteria for practice are determined with the profession itself, rather than imposed upon it from outside forces (e.g. political institutions or public evaluation). Even when a profession is embedded within a larger institutional system, professionals express autonomy by acting as gatekeepers of knowledge which directs the resources of said institution. A doctor may work within the institution of a hospital, for example, but she decides whether a patient will be admitted, what course of treatment the patient will receive, and when the patient will be discharged. (Freidson 1986:166-167)

A conversation within the literature on work and occupations which is related to professional autonomy deals with proletarianization of skilled labor. As noted above, professionals are often integrated into larger bureaucratic institutions rather than self-employed

15 but are still able to maintain a level of independence through control over their specialized knowledge base. Their integration into bureaucratic structures, however, does require that professionals take on a range of lower-level tasks in order to maintain administrative coordination within those structures (Derber 1982:173). Derber tells us that the result is that professionals experience a “loss of control over the selection and allocation of tasks,” but retain a

“‘craft-like’ autonomy within a highly specialized and skilled technical area,” (Derber

1982:173). Professionals do not experience deskilling because their technical expertise is difficult to routinize, but bureaucratization can lead to greater task specialization which in turn limits technical autonomy (Derber 1982:173). Within bureaucratic work institutions such as corporations or government offices, professionals have less control over their goals and assignments and are subject to institutional management of routine daily activities (Derber

1982:173-175; Form and Huber 1976:785). As a consequence, a hierarchy of professional work emerges in which the independently employed professional (having the highest degree of autonomy) has a higher level of prestige than the professional employed within a bureaucracy

(Form and Huber 1976:785; Reiss 1955:75). Understanding professional independence, proprietary expertise, and the place of the professional within the modern workforce is filled with complexities, as we see here that not all professionals (even within the same occupation) are equal in status or autonomy.

Occupational Selection

Another thread of discussion within the sociological literature of work and occupations is the orientation of individuals into professions and occupations. What is the process of occupational selection by which individuals come to their work? Are people oriented toward occupations through individual choice or are they influenced by larger structural social forces?

Van Maanen (1976) views early orientation toward an occupation or profession as anticipatory socialization which occurs prior to entry into said profession (Pp.83). Anticipatory socialization influences adult group membership (in this case, occupational membership) and is based in interactions with significant others such as parents, teachers, or friends. Social forces may place restrictions on occupational choice, based on factors such as economic class, race, or gender, but some element of individual choice as to career path remains (Dunkerley 1975:5; Van Maanen

1976:82-83). Through anticipatory socialization, the individual makes choices as to the kind of career she desires based not only on the kind of work she wants to do but the kind of person she wants to be.

Caplow (1964) suggests that organizational selection, or the process by which work organizations instill new values, self-concepts, and a new sense of community in an individual, also plays a role in career selection (Pp. 169). Hughes (1958) notes as professionals go through training to learn the technique of their work, that training “carries with it as a by-product assimilation of the candidate to a set of professional attitudes and controls, a professional conscience and solidarity,” (Pp.33). Those willing to reorient themselves to the needs of the organization maintain careers within that organization (Van Maanen 1976:75). As an example, in his examination of wildland firefighters, Desmond (2008) finds that individuals come into the profession with a “country-masculine” background that socializes them toward the demands and risks of wildland firefighting. Once they are employed as firefighters, they become socialized to the needs of the organization for which they now fight fires, the Forest Service (Desmond 2008).

Choosing an occupation is a matter of personal disposition, and assimilating into an organizational work structure is about refining or redirecting that disposition.

Archaeology as a Profession

This dissertation focuses on archaeology, which I conceptualize as a profession. It certainly has many of the characteristics that scholars such as Carr-Saunders and Wilson (1933),

Goode (1961), and MacIver (1955) considered hallmarks of a profession. First, archaeological practice requires specialized technical skills and is framed within a specialized body of theory.

Second, the acquisition of the skills and the theoretical foundation required to practice archaeology requires one to attain a tertiary degree, usually a master’s or doctoral degree

(Ashmore and Sharer 2014:20). Third, professional organizations such as the Society for

American Archaeology (SAA), the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), the Society for

Historical Archaeology (SHA), and the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA) have developed and urge members to abide by a code of ethical archaeological practice. Membership to the RPA offers professional credentials, as it requires that one has a degree at the master’s level or higher and has conducted theoretically sound archaeological research. Fourth, archaeologists in either academic or non-academic positions are hired for their specialized knowledge and skills. Fifth, archaeologists perform a public service by uncovering, interpreting, protecting, and conserving the material record of the human past. The codes of ethics endorsed by the SAA, the SHA, the AIA, and the RPA all consider professional activity to be in the service of the archaeological site, the public, and descendent populations associated with archaeological finds; archaeologists should to be motivated by a desire to be responsible stewards of the material record. (AIA 2016; RPA; SAA 1996; SHA 2015) Finally, archaeology evolved as a profession in the 20th century as new categories of risk and uncertainty emerged relating primarily to industrial growth. Archaeology experienced extensive professionalization in the United States in response to the changes in laws protecting environmental resources

18 affected by federally-funded construction or land use projects. The need to mitigate the risks of destroying significant historic and prehistoric was (and remains) a catalyst for professionalization.

Archaeology attracts amateur or avocational practitioners who range in their level of interest, dedication, and ethical orientation to the discipline. The dividing line between professional and avocational archaeology is important because it is a matter of maintaining autonomy through control of expert knowledge. Avocational archaeologists may be landowners in rural areas who come across archaeological material on a regular basis, collecting it as it appears in fields or pastures. The more enthusiastic avocationalists may “hunt” artifacts on their own, volunteer on local digs or belong to local organizations geared toward amateur or public archaeology. Some avocationalists may collect and sell archaeological materials, destroying sites, artifacts, and archaeological context. Professional archaeologists are unable to constantly monitor the activities of avocational archaeologists, but their status as professionals allows them to direct and control the interpretation of the material record. Avocational archaeologists may physically conduct archaeological work, but they lack the legitimacy afforded by professional membership which, as noted above, is usually conferred through a tertiary degree, usually at the master’s level or higher.

Archaeology also exemplifies the complexities of professional autonomy in the workplace. Archaeologists in the United States overwhelmingly work in either academic institutions, for government institutions, or as consultants. Academic archaeology carries the highest level of professional status and autonomy and requires, in most cases, attainment of the highest educational degree, the doctorate. Within academic institutions archaeologists are often able to set their research agendas but still experience institutional constraints in the form of

19 budgetary restrictions, time commitments to departmental service and teaching, and competition for external funding. Archaeologists working for the government or as consultants are employed to ensure that a particular development project complies with federal regulations regarding the identification of cultural resources and the mitigation of any adverse effects (such as destruction) on significant resources. In this cultural resource management work, archaeologists do not set their research agendas and their work often focuses on the technical tasks specific to archaeological survey (archaeological techniques will be described in detail in Chapter 3).

Archaeologists working in CRM are required to have master’s degrees, a tertiary degree with less prestige than the doctorate. At the lowest level of the profession are the field technicians, who have the least control over the projects on which they work and whose work is the most task oriented. Field technician positions generally require a bachelor’s degree; movement out of the field technician position often hinges upon acquiring the next level of educational degree, the master’s. Each individual described above is a practicing archaeologist valued for their technical expertise and skill. The academic, the CRM professional, and the field technician experience varying levels of autonomy and status, however, according to the needs of their institutions and the level of control exerted over them.

Having examined common features of professions and discussed how archaeology can be viewed as a profession, I turn my attention to examine how a profession controls its members and initiates internally and how it fits into a wider socioeconomic context. Here, I examine works from medical sociology, which has a well-developed literature on medicine as a profession and on the professionalization of medical professionals. By looking at case studies in professionalization I can gain an understanding of the socialization and training that underlie the

20 process of becoming a professional. I also examine work on the limits of professional autonomy in medicine, which shows the effects of outside influences on professional practice.

Case Studies: Professionalization in Medicine

There is a substantial sociological literature has been built only around a few professional domains. The most prolific case studies on professionalization focus on the education of doctors, nurses, midwives, and other health practitioners. Works such as Boys in White (Becker et al

1961), Forgive and Remember (Bosk 1979), Beyond Caring (Chambliss 1996), Profession of

Medicine (Freidson 1970), “Training for Uncertainty (Fox 1957), “The Medical Profession and

Organizational Change: From Professional Dominance to Countervailing Power” (Light 2000),

“Mid-Wives in Transition: The Structure of a Clinical Revolution” (Katz-Rothman 1983),

“Never Enough Time: How Medical Residents Manage a Scarce Resource” (Yoels and Claire

1999) all discuss the professionalization of doctors, nurses, and other health practitioners.

Although my research does not focus on the medical domain, an examination of the medical professionalization literature will help me establish conceptual categories of professionalization which will guide my own work.

Becker and colleagues’ Boys in White (1961) stands as one of the most influential works on the professionalization of medical students into medical doctors. Becker and his colleagues

(1961) illustrate how professionalization takes place within a complex of social systems which influence the behavior and perspectives of initiates into a profession. Their work is an account of detailed observation of medical students throughout their entire medical education (Becker et al 1961). The authors viewed medical school as the anchor for a set of interwoven social systems revolving around the profession and practice of medicine (Becker et al 1961). Students, they pointed out, were part of many social networks involving other students, faculty, patients,

21 nurses, and auxiliary hospital personnel, (Becker et al 1961:47-48). All of these interconnected social systems affected, and sometimes conflicted with, one another, and all worked to influence the perceptions the medical students developed about conducting themselves as professionals

(Becker et al 1961).

One theme that emerges in Boys in White (1961) is how influential immediate situations can be on individual conduct, especially when the immediate situations are imbued with the values, interests, and privileges associated with a specific group membership (Becker et al

1961:441-442). Becker and colleagues noted that the short-term perspectives of medical students during their training affected and modified their long-term goals in the profession of medicine (1961:435-436). Becker and his colleagues called these short-term perspectives their

“student culture” (1961:435-436). Student culture created a feeling of collective autonomy among the medical students, leading Becker and his colleagues to observe that power and control in an organizational setting depends in part on the willingness of those at the bottom of the hierarchy to be controlled by those above them (1961:438). Students also appeared to exert their autonomy in ways that supported a more pragmatic but still idealized view of their chosen profession. They would concentrate their time and effort on activities that would make a good impression on the faculty rather than dividing their effort equally among all tasks to be learned

(Becker et al 1961:439-440). Students would spend a great deal of time on acquiring diagnostic knowledge so as to appear knowledgeable during rounds, for example (Becker et al 1961:283).

In Profession of Medicine Freidson (1970) discusses the limits of professional autonomy in medicine. Autonomy is the illusory prize that all working individuals strive for: the power to exert control over one’s own work, to take advantage of the labor market while being independent of its exploitative practices (Freidson 1970:368). Professions claim autonomy over

22 their fields of work based on their expertise and based on claims of ethicality or “good intentions” to practice their profession responsibly (1970:360). No profession truly operates free of outside influence, however, as professional knowledge and practice develop within institutions (schools, government agencies, hospitals) embedded in a socioeconomic context

(Freidson 1970:359). Doctors regularly diagnose illness rather than health, for example, because diagnosing and treating illnesses are the economic drivers of medical institutions such as hospitals (Freidson 1970:359). Ethics, Freidson contends, are less about good intentions and more about controlling the behavior of members of a profession through self-policing as a way of maintaining social and economic control over some area of knowledge (1970:377-382).

The concepts of professional autonomy and professional training into the profession came together in Bosk’s Forgive and Remember (1979), another ethnographic participant/observation study. Bosk (1979) discussed the construction and maintenance professional identity, specifically the intersection of professional socialization and medical ethics. Formal and informal social controls were exerted both internally and externally on the lower level surgeons (the interns and residents) in the surgical services, thus creating a pattern of controlling professional behavior (1979). Bosk showed that errors were viewed as either preventable or exogenous (non-preventable or uncontrollable) and that preventable errors were typed as technical, judgmental, or normative (1979:36-68). Each error type was dealt with in a specific manner by superordinates to the surgical students, and interestingly, it is the normative errors which carry the harshest punishments (1979:36-68). Normative errors were conduct violations viewed to challenge the constructed reality of a situation or the organizational hierarchy (Bosk 1979:51). Normative errors could be considered akin to violations or professional ethics, as these were errors in behavior rather than in tasks or in the application of

23 knowledge. Failure to keep the attending physicians informed of developments on the floor of the hospital was considered a normative error, for example (Bosk 1979:55). Bosk (1979) used his data to illuminate the underlying framework in which surgical students learn to become successful professionals, even in the face of their medical failures.

As I look at professionalization in archaeology through ethnographic and interview data, the above case studies in medical settings help me understand where the study of archaeology may contribute to the existing sociological literature on the subject. Similar to the medical students that Becker et al (1961) followed, students of archaeology are part of multiple social systems that involve other students, faculty, departmental staff, and fieldwork personnel. The work of Becker and his colleagues may give me insight as to the ways that students negotiate the social networks of the field school. Freidson’s (1970) work can give me a foundation for exploring the autonomy of archaeologists from economic and political institutions. While the

Society for American Archaeology (SAA) provides a set of principles of archaeological ethics, archaeological work is also subject to federal laws such as the National Environmental Policy

Act (NEPA) and the laws of individual states. The federal and state laws that govern archaeological practice are tied to both income and politics: archaeological work is made relevant because it is required in federal construction projects, but the same laws can constrain the way archaeologists conduct their work. For the archaeologist, professional standards and autonomy exist within a complex economic and political context. Finally, Bosk’s (1979) discussion on the socialization of professionals can be useful in my own research as I examine how archaeologists acquire the knowledge and norms of archaeological work. My ethnographic data comes from an archaeological field school, which is a learning environment that shares some of the characteristics of the teaching hospital: it is an arena of hands-on learning, it is an

24 immersive educational experience, and work and status are delineated through a strict hierarchy of command.

Ethnographic Work in Archaeology

Existing ethnographic work in archaeological settings gives me insight into the hands-on learning experience of field school which is important because part of my research is ethnographic participant-observation conducted at an archaeological field school. I include here an overview of the ethnographic research scholars have conducted on archaeological sites or at field schools, as their methods, questions, and findings inform my research. Archaeological ethnographers have examined the way that all participants at field schools relate to one another socially and professionally, how archaeological knowledge is constructed, and how training methods affect student learning. My work adds to the body of ethnography on archaeology as it is a study on the elements of professional identity that emerge and the mechanisms of professionalization at work in the field school setting.

There is a tradition of ethnographic work conducted on archaeological sites dating to the

1950s. The first archaeologist to turn an ethnographic eye toward archaeological fieldwork was

Louis Dupree (Edgeworth 2006). In a short paper for American Antiquity in 1955, Dupree recognized that archaeological field projects provided an excellent opportunity to observe and analyze relationships at the level of a small group. He suggests that the field crew recruited by the archaeologist is “an artificial small group within an already functioning society,” (Dupree

1955:271). The artificial group becomes a “natural group” and indeed an institution as its members meet daily, work toward a well-defined goal, create a set of group rules, and develop internal social and professional equilibrium (Dupree 1955:271). The formation of the artificial group and its transformation to an institution, Dupree suggests, should be viewed as a source for

25 study by social scientists. How the field crew functions, how it is structured, how its internal hierarchy form, and how that hierarchy relates back to larger social hierarchies outside the group are all topics that could be examined in the fieldwork setting (Dupree 1955:271).

Yarrow (2006) explored relationships of participants to sites and to one another in his ethnographic work on an archaeological field project. He noted that the community that developed during the fieldwork was composed of a variety of actors, all of whom were identified

(by themselves and by others) by their relation to the site: volunteers, academics, landowners, and benefactors (Yarrow 2006). He also observed how all the actors associated with the archaeological site constructed archaeological knowledge. Landowners, for example, might find the existence of a site and the process of excavation to be more important that the actual results of the excavation, as that is the context of archaeology which has the most impact on them. To the landowner, the site might become a symbol of local heritage and identity while for the academic might represent a scientific contribution to their discipline. (Yarrow 2006:26-28) An archaeological site is therefore not one monolithic set of activities restricted to one physical location, but a composite of multiple sites of knowledge production (Yarrow 2006:28-30).

Both Yarrow (2006) and Van Reybrouck and Jacobs (2006) argued that archaeological excavations are places where archaeological knowledge is constructed and where participants are transformed into archaeologists. Van Reybrouck and Jacobs studied the process by which individuals were turned into social agents in the field of archaeology (2006:33). They used participant/observation to document “how scholars make facts and facts make scholars,” (Van

Reybrouck and Jacobs 2006:33). One finding during the course of their research was the fluidity of the professionalization process; competence could be gained and lost over time, causing fluctuations in one’s trustworthiness as a competent archaeological researcher (Van Reybrouck

26 and Jacobs 2006:41-42). Competence requires not only the acquisition of knowledge, but the continued application of that knowledge in archaeological settings. Professional expertise and proficiency is built and maintained by taking part in research.

In his ethnographic study over two field seasons at an archaeological field school, Holtorf

(2006) asked what archaeological skills participants in this experiential setting were learning

(p.81). He noted the importance of fieldwork to the identity of the archaeologist: those who do not go through the rite of passage in the field are not considered “true” archaeologists by their peers (Holtorf 2006:82). He observed that fieldwork was a both a place of learning and a period of initiation (Holtorf 2006:82-84). Field school was also a social experience, with social bonds and tensions emerging based on a number of factors such as duration of stay on site, age differences, variations in personality, motivations for participation on the site (i.e. for fun or for acquiring expertise), and social/cultural backgrounds (Holtorf 2006:86). One interesting observation Holtorf made was that while students picked up some of the practical skills for archaeological fieldwork, many failed to fully appreciate the overall research goals of their excavation (2006:88). He attributed this gap in knowledge to the organization and hierarchy at work on the site: site directors analyzed most of the data and wrote the site reports, thus excluding students from the process of both learning and creating the lasting archaeological knowledge to be drawn from their work (Holtorf 2006:88-89).

In his ethnographic work on a British field school, Everill examined mechanisms of training and factors that affected student learning (Everill 2007). Once an hour over the course of one day, field school participants were asked to record their thoughts about their experience, the field school, and what they were learning (Everill 2007:485). A total of five staff, five undergraduates, and three volunteers took part in the study, writing a paragraph every hour from

9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. (Everill 2007:485). The diaries revealed that a lack of coordination in the hierarchy of the supervisory team left students and volunteers confused and frustrated as they tried to learn field techniques. Inconsistency in supervision (such as a supervisor’s level of knowledge or the amount of time they spent working with students) played a part in how much and how effectively the students learned, as some students required more attention or information from the staff than others. (Everill 2007:496-497) Everill points out that disconnect between the goals of the students and volunteers and the goals of the staff were due mainly to the fact that the field school was not designed solely to teach the students, but was part of a larger archaeological research project. (Everill 2007:496-497) As a result, the students often found themselves being used as inexpensive labor for a research agenda rather than trainees learning technical competency (Everill 2007:497).

My work contributes to literature on professionalization in sociology, as I examine the process of becoming a professional archaeologist. It also contributes to a reflexive archaeological literature which gives archaeologists a more coherent sense of their discipline. As

Dupree (1955) points out, an archaeological site or project is an excellent setting for ethnographic work because of its tendency to be socially all-encompassing (even isolating) and its internal social hierarchy, perhaps akin to Goffman’s total institution (1961). Yarrow (2006) explains that multiple actors on archaeological sites produce the archaeological record; Van

Reybrouck and Jacobs (2006) note that archaeological sites are places where both archaeological knowledge and archaeologists are made. Both Yarrow and Van Reybrouck and Jacobs can help me understand how acquisition of archaeological knowledge translates into professional identity.

Holtorf’s (2006) ethnographic work examining the social interaction between students and staff on a field school gives me insight into the social and professional hierarchy on an archaeological

28 site. He noted that students often left the site with little understanding of the larger research questions driving the archaeological work. Similarly, Everill (2007) found that students working on a research rather than a training excavation may find their goals of gaining a range of archaeological skills at odds with the needs of the field school staff, whose aim is to complete their archaeological research in a timely and efficient manner. The work of Holtorf (2006) and

Everill (2007) lead me to wonder how archaeological training at a field school contributes to student competency and acquisition of archaeological knowledge.

Summary

The purpose of this review of the literature on professions and professionalization is to lend context to the present study. I examined the historic development of professions in a modern Western context. I also discussed the characteristics of a profession, noting six key features: specialized knowledge and theory; formal training or education, professional institutions which standardize conduct and ethics; some degree of professional autonomy; an orientation toward service to the community; and the use of knowledge to allay risk or uncertainty. Specific characteristics of archaeology as a profession and a discipline will be discussed in the following chapter in much more detail, but the elements of professional status outlined in the literature I have reviewed allow me to conceptualize archaeology as a profession.

To understand professionalization, training, and autonomy I turned to literature developed in medical sociology, particularly Becker et al’s (1961) and Bosk’s (1979) studies of medical students and Freidson’s examination of professional autonomy in medicine. Ethnographic work on archaeological sites showed me how other researchers have studied social structure, training efficacy, and construction of professional knowledge on archaeological field projects. From this

29 literature review, I understand that my work has a place in the professions literature as an exploration and analysis of the way that people enter into a profession.

In the next chapter I turn my attention to archaeology as a discipline, a profession, and a practice. The reader will be given an introduction to archaeological methods and practice. I will discuss the requirements for professional membership, particularly in relation to federal laws which govern cultural resource management in the United States. A short history of the practice of archaeology in the United States will give the reader a sense of the development of the discipline, while information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS) on the industries which employ archaeologists will illuminate the current state of the profession. Finally, I will examine cultural constructions of archaeology. Television shows, movies, and magazines create a romantic image of archaeologists who engage in exciting travel and make stunning discoveries.

The archaeologist-as-adventurer is a stereotype that we will come back to in subsequent chapters, as this iconic ideal influenced many of the professional archaeologists I interviewed.

CHAPTER 3

AN OVERVIEW OF ARCHAEOLOGY

An Introduction to the Profession

Before going into detail about the methods and the results of my research, it will be helpful to provide some information about the practice of archaeology. This chapter includes a basic summary how archaeology is carried out is provided, as well as a short primer of archaeological terms and concepts. A summary of archaeological work will help orient the reader to the physical realities of archaeology. I focus primarily on archaeological education, training, and employment is unique in the United States as I discuss the practice of archaeology in educational and non-educational settings. To develop a more complete understanding of the reasons that people are attracted to archaeology, I will also discuss the image of the archaeologist in popular culture. The cultural depiction of archaeology in a Western context is part of the foundation of professional identity for archaeologists in the United States.

What is Archaeology?

Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains; it is both a body of knowledge and a set of methods employed in the recovery and analysis of data. While archaeology is related to history and anthropology in terms of both research subjects and academic development, “archaeology is neither history nor anthropology. As an autonomous discipline, it consists of a method and a set of specialized techniques for the gathering or

‘production’ of cultural information,” (Taylor 1948:42). Academically, archaeology is a discipline with a rich theoretical base that serves as an interpretive lens for understanding past human behaviors via interventions in the landscape. The techniques for conducting research, undertaking fieldwork, and processing material cultural remains used in that study are also archaeology. The activities associated with archaeological research are unique, tailored over time to a discipline whose area of study, in a geographic sense, is nearly unlimited. The challenge through the evolution of archaeology has been in creating a set of systematic techniques and a theoretical base which may be applied with scientific rigor in wide range of settings.

How do archaeologists conduct research?

Archaeology requires physical and mental engagement with the landscape and/or the material record. The physical aspects of archaeology can be very intense as archaeologists often work in remote places navigating difficult terrain. There are many factors that influence the manner in which archaeological research is conducted. Methods for research, fieldwork, and data analysis are affected by geographic location, local environment, the nature of the material culture encountered (whether or not that material can be collected or simply recorded in the field and left), the resources and labor pool available to the archaeologist, and the research question under investigation. A research design may be created or modified to take a number of unique or unexpected elements into account. Archaeologists learn the intrinsic rules and standards of conducting their work through training in fieldwork methods.

There are a number of ways that archaeologists conduct fieldwork to collect data in the field. Archeological field methods range in their scale in terms of the area covered and by their level of invasiveness. All archaeological methods are intended to ensure that areas of

32 archaeological interest are properly identified and that maximum information is gleaned from any archaeological site. A well-known axiom of archaeology is that once excavated, a site is destroyed forever, which means that recording information in the field is a vital part of the profession, as is accuracy in measurement and precision in techniques. Archaeologists also often employ less intrusive methods for identifying or investigating sites, which is both cost-effective

(intensive fieldwork can be very expensive) and preserves at least part of the archaeological record for future researchers. I will discuss three basic field methods used in the United States, particularly (but certainly not exclusively) in CRM: pedestrian survey, shovel pit testing, and excavation. The reader should keep in mind, however, that there are many variations on archaeological fieldwork. Pedestrian survey and shovel pit testing are methods of identifying archaeological sites, while excavation is the primary method archaeologists use to gather information from sites (Ashmore and Sharer 2014).

Pedestrian survey, which may also be called walkover survey, involves identifying and recovering archaeological finds from the surface of the landscape. Surface survey is often conducted in the initial phase (often referred to as Phase I) of an archaeological project and is used to locate possible sites that may be explored more comprehensively at a later date. It allows for a large area to be explored archaeologically in a short period of time and can therefore be very cost-effective. To conduct surface survey, one important criterion that usually must be met is that there must be adequate surface visibility. This means that a certain percentage of the bare surface (i.e. the dirt) must be visible to the naked eye. The percentage required to allow surface survey is arbitrary and varies depending on location or the overseeing institution. The West

Virginia State Historic Preservation Office (WVSHPO), for example, requires 75% surface visibility while the Ohio Historic Preservation Office (OHPO) requires 50% surface visibility

(OHPO 1994:61; WVSHPO:7-8). Visibility is generally measured intuitively and is therefore a kind of innate knowledge one acquires through experience. Another factor that often determines if surface collection is appropriate is the slope of the landscape. In Ohio, the OHPO notes that areas with more than a 15 degree slope should not be subjected to surface survey, as surface materials on steeply sloped landscapes are affected by weathering and erosion. While slope could be determined more precisely using an alidade or a theodolite, most archaeologists

“eyeball” the landscape and judge whether or not it is suitable for surface collection.

Figure 1 gives one typical example of what a surface survey might look like. Here, in the lower left-hand corner, we can see a datum point, which serves as an arbitrary reference point for the rest of the site. The datum point is often calculated as a point of latitude and longitude, a feat made much easier with the wide availability of handheld global positioning equipment, but you will see that on Figure 1 it is simply marked as 0N, 0E. All other points on the site are identified by how many meters north and east they are from the datum point. Archaeological workers are positioned set distances from the datum point. In Figure 1, the six walkers are set at 20m intervals from one another. Each walker is responsible for ten meters on either side of the fixed line they are assigned to walk, thus they must scan a swath 20 meters total for archaeological finds or features in the landscape as they walk. The walkers must keep track of the distance they walk either through the use of tapes, a GPS unit, or their own pace (a basic skill for any archaeologist is measuring distance by using their own pace—I know, for instance, that 22 of my steps on a flat landscape is 15 meters or approximately 50 feet). In this example, four lithics

(stone tools or the debitage left over from creating stone tools) are located in the survey area. I have shown their location here in relation to the datum point, which places each at a unique and precise spot in the survey area. The walkers would also note other important aspects of the

34 landscape, such as the small path winding through the upper portion of the survey area, and the trees. Ground cover, vegetation, and the slope of the topography would also be recorded, as would the weather conditions for that day.

Figure 1: An example of surface or pedestrian survey

If surface visibility does not allow for a surface survey, another exploratory (i.e. Phase I) archaeological method is shovel testing. A shovel test unit (STU) is a small unit dug by hand at regular intervals across the landscape. Again, the size and even the shape of the unit may change based on location or institution. In Ohio, the OHPO requires that hand units be no less that .5m by .5m and that they be placed at intervals of no more than 15m. STUs must be dug to either sterile soil (a stratigraphic level in which archaeological materials do not occur) or to a depth of

50 cm, whichever occurs first. (OHPO 1994:61-62) The soil removed from the STU should

35 ideally to be screened (usually through ¼ mesh) in order to find and remove any possible archaeological materials such as lithics, bone, or ceramics. On occasion, however, it is impossible to screen the soils removed from the STU. Clayey soils, very wet soils, or very dry, baked soils may be difficult to screen, requiring that the archaeologist decide whether to sacrifice time trying to screen or thoroughness by simply troweling through the earth instead. Once the earth is removed, an STU offers the archaeological worker an opportunity to get a view of the stratigraphy below the surface of the ground. Disturbances such as animal burrows, tree roots, or plowing can be noted, as can archaeological features such as post holes (distinctive rings of dark earth indicative of holes once containing wooden structural or foundational posts).

Figure 2 gives a typical example of what a shovel testing plan might look like. Here we can see a grid superimposed over the archaeological project area, with STUs at the intersection of each vertical and horizontal line. In comparing Figures 1 and 2, the reader can see the difference in time and labor that would go into these two methods. A reasonable expectation might be that each worker digs 2 to 3 STUs per hour, averaging somewhere around 20 units per day in ideal field conditions. Sometimes workers double up, with one person digging while the other screens. Tree roots, soil that is too dry, wet, or clayey to dig through or screen easily, or dense vegetation are all factors that can slow down the digging process. Finding archaeological materials can also slow down the digging process, as those materials must then be collected and bagged. Locating archaeological materials also often dictates that more STUs be dug as the archaeologist works to identify the boundaries of the site. Thus, the grid in Figure 2 is marked with 80 STUs to be dug, but the grand total actually turns out to be 93 STUs in this example.

The walkover survey in Figure 2 could easily be completed in one day by a team of two or three walkers. A team of two working together on each unit would take at least four days to complete

36 the work outlined in Figure 2, assuming they could dig approximately 25 units per day (a high estimate).

Figure 2: An example of an archaeological plan for shovel testing

The white boxes in Figure 2 indicate negative units, or STUs which yielded no archaeological materials, while the black boxes indicate positive units. A positive unit could contain artifacts such as stone tools or the debitage from making stone tools, features such as hearths or house foundations, or ecofacts such as ancient pollen remains. In the example here, once a positive unit was identified on the original grid, radial STUs were placed at 7.5 meter

37 intervals from the original positive unit. This was done to get a better sense of the dimensions of the archaeological site uncovered. A few of the intersections are marked with Xs, which indicate places where STUs could not be placed due to features in the landscape. The unit at 90N, 45E could not be placed due to the presence of a cluster of trees, the unit at 45N, 105E was located within a structure, and the unit at 45N, 120E could not be dug due to vegetation and the presence of a nearby driveway. These units could have been effectively offset from the original grid, but here the archaeologist decided that simply digging the surrounding units on the original grid would be sufficient for this investigation. Factors on the ground such as the level of apparent ground disturbance close to the structure or the conditions near the location of the STU to be placed would have influenced this decision.

Excavation is a more labor and time intensive type of archaeological fieldwork.

Excavation is the systematic exposure of subsurface materials, the recording of those materials, and, if possible, the collection of materials judged to be important to understanding past human activity at the site (Ashmore and Sharer 2014:107; Fagan 2001:188). Surface collection and shovel testing are usually used to identify archaeological sites and determine whether they have a level of integrity (i.e. the archaeologically interesting materials are relatively undisturbed by subsequent human or natural activity) and yield materials that would make more intensive archaeological investigation worthwhile. Here is another judgement call for the archaeologist, as he or she wields expert judgement to make the decision whether excavation is warranted on a site or not. A small lithic scatter with no diagnostic pieces (i.e. no archaeological finds that can be attributed to a certain culture or time period) is unlikely to be judged worthy of excavation, but

STUs that yield post holes and thus indicate a more permanent prehistoric settlement might be considered for further work.

While there are a number of ways to design an excavation, a grid of 1x1 or 2x2 m squares superimposed over the project area is one common method. Each grid square is then hand excavated in increments—10 cm levels, for example—with each layer carefully unearthed, photographed, and drawn. Features such as walls, flooring, or hearths may be left in place or in situ as the site is excavated, depending on their association (i.e. relationship temporally and spatially) with other archaeological materials. The earth removed from each layer is removed via bucket or wheelbarrow and screened, thus all of the earth from the 10cm layer of one grid square will be screened and any archaeological materials found within will be labeled as having come from that particular area of the excavation. In this way, the archaeologist creates a three- dimensional record to the excavated area, placing artifacts and features on X, Y, and Z axes over the project area. Excavation is one of, if not the, most time-consuming and expensive fieldwork methods. An excavation can take weeks, months, and even multiple field seasons to complete; larger sites may necessitate a varied staff of supervisors, field technicians, and even volunteers.

A team of workers from multiple disciplines with a range of specializations can be required to work on the site and analyze the data. Experts such as botanists, zoologists, physical anthropologists, and geologists may participate, depending on the kinds of data being recovered.

(Fagan 2001:189-192)

The field methods outlined here serve to give the reader a sense of the technical aspects of physically conducting archaeological fieldwork. The above examples also show that archaeology is a combination of specific skills (e.g. identifying archaeological material or reading a compass), theoretical and practical knowledge (e.g. reading landscape geomorphology or applying sampling strategies), and intuitive understanding (e.g. deciding whether surface visibility warrants a walkover survey or deciding whether an archaeological site should be fully

39 excavated). An added dimension which will be discussed in Chapter 4 is the environmental setting in archaeological work is conducted. Meticulous care must be taken to collect and record data on an archaeological site regardless of extreme heat or cold, dense vegetation, or on difficult terrain.

Becoming an Archaeologist

Where and how do people learn to become archaeologists? The easy answer is that they go to college and major in anthropology, archaeology, Classical Studies, or a similar program with an archaeological component. The answer to this question is not as simple as it seems, however. The requirements for earning a higher degree focusing on archaeology vary widely across and within disciplines. Across the United States there are archaeology programs at 2 year community colleges or technical schools, four year colleges and universities, and within graduate programs. Some programs focus on the technical aspects of archaeological work while others emphasize theory and historic context. Some may give students an opportunity to work with archaeological materials in a laboratory or archival setting while fieldwork or research design may be stressed in others. Graduate programs may prepare students to enter into academia or they may orient the students toward careers in cultural resource management.

Overall, archaeological training at the level of the masters or doctoral degree is not uniform. Many archaeologists specialize in one area of the world or a specific time period, which may affect the moniker they are given and the way they were taught archaeology.

Classical archaeologists concentrate on the civilizations of the classical western world such as the Greeks and Romans while medieval archaeologists focus largely on Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. Egyptologists study the rich wealth of information left behind by the ancient Egyptians. The Classical archaeologist, the medieval archaeologist, and

40 the Egyptologist are all examples of an art history and history-oriented European tradition of studying the past. By contrast, many American archaeologists study early Native American groups who left no written record. Their training and education developed primarily out of the discipline of anthropology, which is why in most colleges and universities in the United States, archaeology is taught in anthropology departments. Despite the wide variation in archaeological education, possession of that tertiary degree is the most important element of professional status in the United States.

There is no certification or licensure required for archaeological practice. The closest thing to a professional certification in the United States is the Department of the Interior’s (DOI)

Professional Qualifications Standards, found in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 36,

Part 61 (Appendix A). Part 61 is entitled “Procedures for Approved State and Local Government

Historic Preservation Programs.” It explains how states are expected to meet the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA), which facilitates the identification, evaluation, and protection of historic (and prehistoric) cultural resources. States must employ professional historians, architectural historians, and archaeologists to identify and evaluate said resources and 36 CFR 61 outlines the required qualifications for those professionals. The professional credentials for archaeologists read as follows:

The minimum professional qualifications in archeology are a graduate degree in archeology, anthropology, or closely related field plus: (1) At least one year of full-time professional experience or equivalent specialized training in archeological research, administration or management; (2) At least four months of supervised field and analytic experience in general North American archeology; and (3) Demonstrated ability to carry research to completion. In addition to these minimum qualifications, a professional in prehistoric archeology shall have at least one year of full-time professional experience at a supervisory level in the study of archeological resources of the prehistoric period. A professional in historic archeology shall have at least one year of full-time professional

experience at a supervisory level in the study of archeological resources of the historic period. (36 CFR 61 Appendix A)

There are a few points that deserve to be noted about the above list of qualifications. The first is that these qualifications apply to individuals working for the state, usually the state historic preservation office or in other government cultural resource management positions.

Many states also apply these criteria to the archaeological consultants they employ, though that is not the express purpose of the standards. The second is that the above criteria apply to whoever would be considered the principal investigator for a project, which means that not all archaeologists working on the site need fulfill the criteria (field technicians are not required to meet the DOI Standards). A third important point is that the criteria listed are in fact quite vague. The archaeologist may have field or analytic experience and “one year of full-time experience at a supervisory level in the study of archaeological resources.” In other words, archaeologists with widely varying experiences such as managing archaeological collections, working with previously collected materials, conducting lab work, doing Phase I fieldwork, or completing in-depth excavations, would all meet these qualifications. The most specific requirement in the DOI Standards is that an individual must have a graduate degree in archaeology, anthropology, or a closely related field. While “closely-related field” leaves some room for interpretation, the necessity of possessing a graduate degree does not. Here, then, we can see that the most important and inflexible requirement for professional status in archaeology is having a degree at the masters or doctoral level.

Another source of professional credentialing in archaeology is the Register of

Professional Archaeologists (RPA). The RPA’s stated goal is “[t]he establishment and acceptance of universal standards in archaeology” (RPA). To be included on the Register, an archaeologist must have a graduate degree at the master’s level or higher in archaeology or a

42 related discipline and must have designed and implemented an archaeological research project for their thesis or dissertation (in some cases other reports or publications on archaeological research may be substituted) (RPA). Here again, we see that professional status is really conferred through the graduate degree. An archaeologist may have decades of fieldwork experience and have written research reports or even published in peer-reviewed journals, but they are not eligible to be on the Register without a graduate degree.

The most important aspect to note about the RPA is that registration is completely voluntary. While a few institutions and organizations require their employees to be on the

Register, for the most part it is not needed or expected. Very few of the subjects I interviewed, for example, were on the RPA, and many declined to be on it because they felt it was unnecessary and expensive. The yearly fee to be included on the Register ranges from $45 to

$125. Interestingly, dues for the RPA are not as expensive as the dues for many professional organizations—American Medical Association yearly dues for physicians are $420 for a regular yearly membership, for example. The benefits of joining the RPA do not seem to outweigh the relatively low cost of membership, however. While some CRM archaeologists noted that it could be a useful line on one’s resume, the academic archaeologists, many of whom worked outside the United States, did not view it as an important part of their professional identity.

There is little motivation, therefore, for archaeologists to apply to be on the Register because it is not a requirement for professional practice.

We can see from this discussion that in the United States, the most important professional credential is tertiary education. Archaeology therefore differs from professions such as medicine or law, which have extensive certification processes. Possession of a degree at the masters or doctoral level is the only inflexible requirement for professional status in the eyes of the U.S.

43 government. A graduate degree is even required for inclusion on the voluntary professional register, the RPA. The use of the tertiary degree to determine professionalism raises a number of questions to be explored in the present study. What skills or abilities are necessary for professional practice? How are they skills and abilities necessary for professional status conferred within or (given the variability in tertiary degree-granting programs) outside of one’s formal education? What makes a person a professional archaeologist? The matter of professionalization in archaeology is not straightforward, and examining the ways in which individuals become archaeologists may shed light on more general aspects of the interplay between education, experience, and professionalization.

Archaeological Reality and Romance

Before I discuss my research on archaeological professionalization, I must first give the reader an overview of what archaeology looks like as a profession in the United States. I will outline the historical development of the profession and explain the factors that drive archaeological work and employment in the United States. I will also discuss the romanticized cultural portrayal of archaeology in popular media. It is important to acknowledge the way that archaeology has been represented in movies, television, and books because archaeological identity, a main theme of my dissertation, is influenced by popular culture. The image of the professional archaeologist has been culturally constructed via the media, and that unavoidable image affects the aspiring and the professional archaeologist alike.

The development of archaeology in the United States was influenced by the character of the material record. While European scholars were more concerned with the Classical world or with the material record of their own countries, scholars in the United States were faced with a unique problem. Not only were there no written records for the ancient Native Americans, their

44 culture was unfamiliar to the Europeans. The enigmatic ancient features in the American landscape, particularly the earthworks of the Ohio Valley, bolstered the European opinion that the early Native Americans and their successors were primitive, “brutal and warlike by nature and biologically incapable of significant cultural development” (Trigger 2008:159).

Interestingly, once earthworks were mapped and excavations revealed an array of complex artifacts made from a variety of materials, some imported over a considerable distance, the dominant scholarly and public opinion of the earthworks changed. A mythical race of prehistoric “Moundbuilders” were now thought to have built the earthworks, and they were driven off by the contemporary, more primitive Native American groups (Trigger 2008:160).

The search for evidence of the missing, technologically advanced Moundbuilder race became an enduring theme in North American archaeology throughout the nineteenth century (Renfrew and

Bahn 2010:18). The material record was thus made to fit the political, economic, and cultural agenda of the time, as it helped justify the removal of the Native Americans, who were now viewed themselves as having less territorial claim over the lands of the Americas (Trigger

2008:160).

By the late nineteenth century in the United States, archaeology had become an academic discipline. Despite the attitudes toward Native Americans noted above, in the United States scholars found much to excavate, record, and study. The American Antiquarian Society was founded in 1812 (Trigger 2008:161). Archaeologists began to organize their activities and to share ideas and techniques across countries and subject areas. Excavations of Danish shell middens (domestic or kitchen waste often consisting of bones and shells), for example, helped guide the excavation of ancient shell middens in the United States (Trigger 2008:163).

Archaeological knowledge and methods of practice were being shared within what was becoming a more uniform profession.

Formalized training of archaeologists in the United States was prompted by the establishment of land-grant universities in the late nineteenth century, which in turn spurred the development of graduate training programs, museums, and social science departments (Patterson

1999). Archaeology was now a formalized discipline and, if we employ the standards discussed in Chapter 2, was becoming a profession. Complex theories developed to analyze the material record and make inferences about prehistoric peoples. Students were taught specific skills for conducting archaeological work, particularly skills related to chronological dating, excavation and artifact curation (Dunnell 1986:26-28). The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) was established in 1934 (Dunnell 1986:29). By the 1920s and 1930s, archaeology was established both academically and culturally.

Archaeologists in the United States were working make their discipline more rigorously scientific (Dunnell 1986:29). According to Dunnell, the adoption of the culture history methodological paradigm served to coalesce the discipline and to form the basis for nearly all archaeological research conducted in the United States (1986:29). Culture history is a methodological approach centered on the development of a chronology for archaeological sites and the recognition of specific cultural groupings based on artifact type and chronology.

Dunnell argues that the culture history approach had major effects on archaeology, as practice became more systematic, more focused, and more productive (1986:29-30). Archaeological ideas could be tested scientifically, as empirical claims could be tested against other existing chronological taxonomies. (Dunnell 1986:29-30) Perhaps most importantly, “[t]he existence of a coherent, widely shared methodology produced comparable products that could be integrated

46 with one another, not only over space and time, but conceptually,” (Dunnell 1986:30).

Archaeology was developing a specialized knowledge base and theory of practice, one of the hallmarks of a profession.

Culture history also became the traditional foundation against which later archaeologists would rebel, taking the discipline in new directions. Archaeology had gone through a period of becoming more scientific, but after a time archaeologists became increasingly dissatisfied with the inadequacy of culture history for reconstructing past lifeways (Dunnell 1986:34). Critique of the culture history approach led to the “New Archaeology,” or processual archaeology, which was concerned with cultural systems. The material record should be understood as the product of human interactions with one another and their environment, according to the New

Archaeologists. (Dunnell 1986:38) New Archaeologists also looked to the methods of anthropology and added ethnographic fieldwork to the required archaeological skill set as they sought to observe the creation of the material record among living peoples (Dunnell 1986:36).

The next theoretical restructuring was post-processual archaeology, which viewed culture as the idiosyncratic product of all the myriad past and present human groups (Trigger 2008:444-445).

Archaeology now had an evolving body of theory, shared and debated by practicing archaeologists.

The above discussion on archaeological theory and practice shows that archaeology went through its own specific professionalization process during the twentieth century. Patterson notes that during this time archaeologists developed their own

“technically specialized language, methodology, and disciplinary culture that bound the trained professionals together and distinguished them from individuals whose claim to authority derived from their social position rather than their mastery of the specialized knowledge and practices,” (Patterson 1999:160).

In Chapter 2 I discussed the relationship between the avocational and the professional archaeologists. The early to mid-twentieth century is when the distinct dividing line between the amateur and the professional emerged. That line became more distinct as archaeologists found a place outside of academia, in the public arena. Archaeologists had the training, the education, and the skill set to interpret the material record across the landscape of the United States.

The first major intersection of government and archaeology came during the Great

Depression, when the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Civil Works Administration, and the

Works Progress Administration initiated archaeological projects to provide employment

(Patterson 1999:160-161). Trained archaeologists oversaw projects, while workers were trained to do fieldwork. The projects conducted for the WPA were often “rescue archaeology,” or work on sites that were due to be destroyed by the construction of hydroelectric dams or other structures (Trigger 2008:301). The resulting large-scale excavations uncovered tremendous amounts of data on past human occupation in the United States, and allowed archaeologists to see overall patterns in artifact, housing, and community distributions and densities in the material record. Despite this early relationship between academic archaeologists and government institutions, archaeology was viewed mainly as an academic discipline rather than a public service. Further, the model developed between the government and archaeologists in the Great

Depression was one centered on rescue rather than research, and this model guided future interaction between archaeology and government for decades. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, archaeological work was considered a necessity that was triggered by construction or land-use decisions rather than as a potential tool for guiding such decisions.

The introduction of several pieces of legislation in the 1960s and 1970s changed the profession by creating new employment categories and new standards of practice (Patterson

1999:165). The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Environmental Policy

Act of 1969, and the Archaeological and Historical Conservation Act of 1974 required federal agencies to take archaeological and historical materials into account when conducting projects

(Patterson 1999:165). Additionally, the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) was established in 1966 to keep track of historically significant sites, buildings, and districts. As a result of the implementation of acts designed to preserve elements of American cultural history, the focus of archaeological work shifted. More archaeologists were able to practice archaeology within the United States rather than on foreign shores (Flatman 2011:12). Archaeology in the public sector became known as Cultural Resource Management (CRM), and by 1980 an estimated 6,000 archaeologists were engaged in it (Patterson 1999:165). By the mid-1990s the numbers had more than doubled, and companies directing CRM investigations and assessing historical or archaeological significance thrived (Patterson 1999:165).

Today, almost all archaeologists in the United States hold either CRM or academic positions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment and

Wages information, 6,980 archaeologists and anthropologists (statistics for these occupations are combined) and 6,000 anthropology and archaeology teachers were employed in the United States as of May, 2015. The top industries in which archaeologists and anthropologists were employed were scientific research and development services (35%), management, scientific, and technical consulting services (14%), the federal government (7%), architectural, engineering, and related services (3%), and the state government (1%). (USBLS 2015b) This means that 60% of archaeologists and anthropologists were employed to provide their expertise as a service.

Anthropology and archaeology teachers were employed at colleges and universities (17%) or junior colleges (14%). The most striking difference between these groups is in salary, with

49 workers employed in teaching positions averaging over $80,000 a year ($86,180 at the college or university level and $82,210 at the junior college level) and those employed in non-academic jobs averaging lower incomes, from $55,940 in state government positions, $62,850 in consulting services, to $76,180 in the federal government positions. (USBLS 2015b) The history of archaeological practice in the United States gives context to the numbers supplied by the BLS, and both tell the story of a profession with two distinct areas of practice: academia and cultural resource management.

Archaeologists who perform CRM work may be trained to preserve or meticulously study the material record, but the goals of the federal and state agencies they serve are quite different.

Archaeology is conducted because it is one of several environmental assessments required for any project with federal funding, using federal land, or requiring a federal permit. The desired outcome is the building of a new road, the sale of a piece of property, or the creation of a new airport, not necessarily the preservation of an archaeological site. Bergman and Doershuk explain that to be effective as archaeologists and cultural resource managers, CRM archaeologists have to be able to balance the needs of their clients, the requirements of federal compliance, and the application of research methods (2003:87). As an example, an archaeologist working for a consulting firm might encounter an archaeological site while conducting CRM work for a private development company. The archaeologist is under pressure from the client to get their work done as quickly and inexpensively as possible, but the archaeologist is professionally obligated to investigate the site according to the standards of good archaeological practice. The archaeologist must learn to navigate the situation carefully, working within the client’s timeline and budget while maintaining professional integrity. In short, CRM work

50 brings in a host of new considerations outside of academic training and knowledge acquisition that must be addressed by the archaeologist.

The persona of the archaeologist in popular culture does not always match the reality of archaeological practice in the United States. As Fagan notes, “Excavation! The very word conjures up romantic images of lost civilizations and royal burials, of long days in the sun digging up inscriptions and gold coins,” (2001:188). He goes on to point out that excavation is actually a rigorous scientific method which requires considerable training and experience (Fagan

2001:188). Despite the sometimes uncomfortable or tedious nature of actual archaeological work that In outlined earlier in this chapter, the romantic image persists and is maintained in books, television, and movie depictions of archaeology.

The connection between archaeology, discovery, and romance originates in the work of seventeenth and eighteenth century antiquarians, individuals who collected items related to the human past from the material record (Trigger 2008:56). Such individuals could be either amateurs interested in the past or could be scholars with official academic or institutional appointments (Trigger 2008:57). Scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries began to tour the Classical world of not only Italy and Greece, but Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Near and

Middle East, bringing back items of artistic value and cultural curiosity (Daniel 1981:15).

Interest in Classical antiquity and Egypt was further fueled by multiple excavations at

Herculaneum and Pompeii throughout the eighteenth century and by the discoveries made by

Napoleon’s Egyptian expeditionary force at the turn of the eighteenth century (Trigger 2008:60;

Daniels 1981:24). The artifacts and the detailed drawings provided by the scholars on

Napoleon’s expedition fascinated European society, as did the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in

1799 (Daniels 1981:24). Artifacts and architectural features were often moved from their

51 original contexts to European museums to be admired by an enthusiastic public. In the latter nineteenth century, the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Mycenae and Troy were reported in multiple newspapers and magazines and followed by thousands of readers. Schliemann’s exploits and discoveries made archaeology seem at once adventurous and mysterious (Hinsley

1989:90-91).

The founding of the National Geographic Society in 1888 and the publication of its magazine continued to provide the public with a fascinating view of “faraway” lands and archaeological discoveries. The magazine was originally text-based, but in the early nineteenth century editor Gilbert H. Grosvenor purposefully transformed the magazine from a journal of

“cold geographic fact, expressed in hieroglyphic terms which the layman could not understand, into a vehicle for carrying the living, breathing, human-interest truth about this great world of ours,” (Grosvenor 1957:23). National Geographic used straightforward, non-technical writing and vivid drawings or photographs which allowed readers to share in the experience of traveling to exotic locations. Gero and Root point out that archaeology was (and in many cases, still is) presented to National Geographic readers as a quest requiring extensive travel and yielding beautiful, unique artifacts (1994:28). The exotic and object-centered representation of archaeology in National Geographic and other magazines has always sparked public interest in archaeology, strengthening the connection between archaeological work, adventure-filled travel, and treasure-hunting in the minds of readers (Gero and Root 1994:27-28).

Archaeology has been portrayed in numerous movies and television shows. Films such as The Mummy, Stargate, The Fifth Element, Prometheus, and even Alien vs. Predator depict archaeologists at their trade (and often at the center of exciting supernatural events). The Indiana

Jones movies (beginning with Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981) created an iconic image of an

52 archaeological protagonist: agile, cunning, proficient in firearms, and skilled in hand-to-hand combat and the use of a whip. Aside from these mercenary-like qualities, he is also a scholar who could speak local languages, read ancient writings, identify artifacts, and locate archaeological materials in the most trying conditions. A central theme many films that portray archaeologists is the quest for treasure (Hall 2004:164). Other themes such as travel, adventure, and danger are also represented in these films: archaeologists go to faraway places and unwittingly unleash ancient evils or set off chains of supernatural events.

Time Team America, which aired on PBS from 2009 through 2012, featured a team of

“freelance and university-affiliated experts” who work on existing excavations with their own set of research questions (Jensen 2009). The show was designed to give a more realistic view of archaeological investigation to the viewing public. In an episode focused on excavation at the home of Josiah Henson, the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the team asks whether they could find archaeological evidence of slavery and whether the kitchen within the home they are investigating was built atop an older kitchen, one contemporary to

Henson. Unlike normal archaeological work, the questions must to be answered within a few days and were targeted to be of interest to a viewing audience. While the show attempted to give viewers a deeper appreciation of archaeology beyond the object (e.g. in one episode the team searches for postholes at Fort Raleigh in North Carolina), it does give the impression that research questions can be relatively easily and definitively answered through targeted archaeological work. The reality can be much more time-consuming and far less cut-and-dry, as evidence for human activities such as slavery or occupation can be difficult to interpret in the material record.

The archaeologist has a specific, culturally constructed identity in Western culture, a fact that surely does not escape the practicing professional. Archaeology has often been linked to adventure, travel, danger, treasure, and discovery both historically and in the present day.

Popular cultural depictions of archaeological work have created the impression that archaeological work is filled with excitement and has an almost magical or supernatural quality.

Archaeologists may embrace some of the above characteristics of the cultural depiction of archaeology while they eschew others. They may retain images developed in childhood if the archaeologist-adventurer which can motivate their love of archaeology, or they may feel obligated to rebel against the stereotypes of their profession.

Summary

By examining the process of conducting archaeological work, professional credentialing, and the history of archaeological practice, I have given the reader a better sense of how archaeology works as a discipline and a profession. In order to practice archaeology, one must have a wide base of knowledge, an understanding of theory, and experience honing practical field, lab, or curation skills. Archaeology requires a high level of expertise, yet it does not require any real certification for practice beyond the acquisition of a graduate degree. In the

United States CRM archaeologists must have a graduate degree, a requirement mandated by the

Code of Federal Regulations. Although archaeologists are often portrayed in popular culture as academic adventurers who travel the world, a large number of archaeologists in the United States are employed as consultants or by the government to conduct archaeology in compliance with federal laws. In my research I explore professional archaeological identity and the ways that expertise, education, and experience work together to create that professional identity.

In the next chapter I will discuss the methods I used to conduct my research. I will outline the two methods of data collection I employed, ethnographic participant-observation and in-depth interviewing. I will describe the setting of my ethnographic work and reflect on my own positionality as a professional archaeologist studying archaeological work. I examine the ethical dilemmas I encountered during my research and explore how my position as a professional archaeologist affected my view of ethics in the archaeological field. An overview of the theoretical perspective guiding my work will also be provided, and a discussion of the way that emerging data and existing theory work together in my research. Issues of reliability and validity are also addressed, which I conceptualize as the credibility of the data.

CHAPTER 4

METHODS

Research Questions

The purpose of the present study is to understand how and why individuals become professional archaeologists. Framed more sociologically, I ask how individuals identify as professional archaeologists, and how they create and maintain their professional identity. I examine what orients individuals, from youth to adulthood, to archaeology as a profession. I also explore the moments or experiences that transform the individual mentally, physically, and socially into professional archaeologists. In this chapter I will discuss why I chose to answer my research questions using qualitative methods, the specific methods I chose to use, the kinds of data I collected, and the ways I prepared and analyzed those data. An overview of my sample and a discussion of the settings in which my research was conducted are provided. I conducted both ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviewing for my study, which each had unique sampling strategies, settings, and methods of data collection. The ethical considerations for each phase of my research are discussed, as are issues of reliability and validity.

Sample and Setting

For my research I carried out ethnographic research and conducted in-depth interviews. I observed 29 individuals during a field school experience and interviewed a total of 58 individuals. I must point out that, as is often the case in qualitative research, both my research

56 setting and my samples are unique and the results from analysis of them may not be generalizable to a larger milieu of archaeological settings or a larger population of archaeologists.

Ethnographic

My research was carried out in two phases over 2014 and 2015. The first part of my research consisted of participant/observation during a period of experiential learning, namely archaeological fieldwork. My ethnographic work was conducted during the Island

Archaeological Survey Project (IASP) program over the summer of 2014. The IASP project field school took place on an island in the Mediterranean over a period of seven weeks. The sample for the ethnographic portion of my research was comprised of the students and staff participating in the field school. Field school participants consisted of 20 American students and six Irish students, as well as two field directors and five archaeological team leaders. Subjects were told of my plan to conduct sociological research in April of 2014 during an informational meeting for the field school. During this meeting I introduced myself and briefly explained the study. At this time I did not recruit any students, but did emphasize that participation was not required and completely voluntary. I explained that participation in the research would consist of allowing me to observe behavior during the field school and being interviewed after completion of the field school. After the informational meeting, I sent out emails to the students and staff re-introducing myself and giving them more details about my research. Informational sheets were attached to the emails, as was all of my contact information and a link to an online consent form. Apart from the online consent form, all students who wished to participate signed hard copies of the consent form and were given hard copies of the informational sheets on the

57 study once we met in person at the field school (see Appendix B). Here again I emphasized the voluntary nature of their participation, and noted that they could opt out of the study at any time.

Thirty-six individuals in total participated in the field school over the course of five weeks: 23 students, 10 staff (including myself), and three volunteers. In all, 29 individuals

(twenty students and nine staff members) allowed me to observe them at the field school and 21 individuals (16 students and five staff members) were later interviewed. Two students dropped out of the program within the first week of fieldwork and asked to be removed from the study.

One student who arrived in the second week of the fieldwork was excluded from the study because he was a non-English speaker. Additionally, three non-students who participated in a portion of the fieldwork (ranging from a few days to two weeks) were also excluded. Two of these individuals were spouses of field school participants or staff who had come to visit and take part in the survey work. The third was a friend of one of the team leaders who was asked to participate during a period when several students were unable to conduct fieldwork due to illness. As my focus was on the students and staff taking part in the field school as a learning/training experience, I did not include these three visitors in the study.

Table 1 shows the demographic breakdown of the individuals in the sample for this phase of the work. The numbers given here represent the individuals who participated in the ethnographic portion of the study as well as myself. A few things stand out here. The first is that the sample was overwhelmingly white. Only two individuals, both students, were not white. Both were young women, and one identified as African-American and the other as Hispanic/Latino.

Another notable feature of the sample is its youth. As this was a field school that students took for college credit and paid for through their university institutions, it is not surprising that most participants were between 18 and 22 years of age. A few of the students were older, and two

58 students were actually retirees who had gone back to school to study archaeology. Most of the students (16) and nearly all of the staff were female (7), including the field director, the assistant field director, the field manager, and the apotheke manager. By far the most significant split between the participants in the field school was whether or not they had taken part in the field school before, in other words, the most important differences between participants was level of experience at the field school (this will be discussed in detail in the findings chapters).

Table 1: The demographic composition of the students and staff included in the ethnographic portion of the study. The researcher is included in the totals.

Students Staff White 18 10

African-American 1 0

Hispanic/Latino 1 0

Male 5 2

Female 15 8

Age: 18-24 17 2

Age: 25+ 3 8

From U.S. 15 8

Non-U.S. 5 2

New 10 4

Returning 10 6

The field school itself provided the parameters for my study in terms of sample as well as duration and location of the research. For the first week of the program, students and staff toured significant historical sites in Athens, Corinth, and Mycenae. For the next five weeks all the field school participants worked on an archaeological research project, with students under the supervision of the field director and the archaeological team leaders. After the students returned home, the final week was spent by the staff finishing up the fieldwork and preparing the site for the next field season.

The main focus of the field school, of course, was the archaeological fieldwork. The fieldwork was, in fact, the primary focus of the IASP, as it might more accurately be considered a “field experience” using student workers than a solely educational field school. The IASP is an academic, data-driven, externally funded research project for which the Field Director is the principal investigator. It does differ from more common field schools which are centered on educating students rather than on completing a specific project. It is certainly not unheard of for students to be present on a research project or for that field experience to be viewed as their field school. There are no set standards for field school curriculum aside from a non-mandatory certification program offered through the RPA (as of 2015 only four field schools are listed as being RPA certified). It is difficult to delineate the “typical” field school experience, and it is important to note the goals of the IASP fieldwork as it does affect student training and the overall generalizability of my study. In my research I have called the IASP field experience a field school because this is how it was presented to the students and how the students and staff referred to it at all times. The students never conceptualized the IASP as anything other than a field school, and they received credit at their home institutions for completing a field school.

The IASP project is a surface survey that was designed to test the value of this data collection method. As noted in the previous chapter, surface or pedestrian survey is a non- invasive archaeological technique in which the distribution and pattern of artifacts and features on the surface of the ground are systematically recorded and collected. In archaeology, non- invasive field methods are appealing because they are both cost and time-effective, but their value as a technique for giving an accurate representation of historic landscapes is uncertain. In the IASP project, current walkover survey data is being compared to walkover survey data collected in the early 1980s in the same area. The comparison is designed to test the accuracy and reproducibility of surface collection data: will surface collection over the same area years later lead archaeologists to the same conclusions about the historic cultural occupation of that area? If the answer is no, how much weight can we give conclusions drawn by walkover survey, and how can we improve our collection methods to ensure the reliable collection of accurate information?

At IASP, students walked Tracts, or large sections, of land at regular intervals and took notes on natural and manmade features, vegetation, and artifacts that they encountered. Students were taught to measure the distance they cover by learning their pacing for 15, 20, and 30 meters. They carried notebooks in which they recorded (based on their pacing) the position and environmental context of artifacts such as lithics, slag, ceramics, and tiles as well as any other pertinent environmental data such as weather conditions and vegetation density. In addition to walkover survey, students also worked in the apotheke, or artifact processing lab, where they washed, sorted, photographed, and labeled artifacts, then registered them in a database.

The above are the somewhat sterile facts of the fieldwork conducted over the course of the field school, but an accurate image of the work would not be complete without explaining the

61 conditions in which it was done. We spent our days in over 90° F heat, climbing over dense and scratchy vegetation in semi-mountainous terrain. On the second day of fieldwork, one student slipped off of a steep terrace of approximately 15-20 feet and broke her wrist, so the possibility of injury in this environment was very real. Plants with colloquial names like “spiny broom,”

“chicken wire,” and “angry dandelions” dug stickers and spines into our clothes, our shoes, and our skins. Students and staff often developed rashes in response to the abrasive vegetation. As the students and I negotiated this environment, we carried backpacks containing at least two 1- liter bottles of water and our food and equipment. I carried an iPad on which I constantly entered data while the students carried paper notebooks in which they did the same. I wore heavy hiking boots, long trousers tucked into tube socks, knee-length gaiters, a long-sleeved button-down shirt over a tee-shirt, a vest, a wide-brimmed hat, and heavy leather-palmed gardening gloves. Over the course of five weeks of fieldwork, the glue that held my (then new) hiking boots together began to disintegrate and the rubberized material on the soles became pitted and rough from the heat and vegetation. After 14 to 15 hours of work each day, I slept on a wire-framed cot in the kitchen of a small apartment, a room which I shared with another staff member. The students slept in shared rooms with unreliable air conditioning and inconsistent hot water availability.

The environment in which we found ourselves was neither pleasant nor comfortable, but not, I should stress, uncommon for a field school or for archaeology in general. It is important to explain the conditions in we worked for two reasons. The first is so that the reader understands the level of physical stress and exhaustion that came with the field work, which affected social interactions, training, and teamwork. The second is so that the reader understands what are considered fairly normal working conditions for an archaeologist. As students were being

62 trained to do archaeological work, they were also being trained to expect and deal with environmental conditions. The way one approaches environments such as those encountered on this field school—ideally without complaint and with some level of enthusiasm—turned out to be an important part of the archaeological identity.

In-Depth Interviewing

The second phase of my research consisted of semi-structured, in-depth interviews. I interviewed 21 field school participants, 18 archaeologists working in CRM jobs, and 21 archaeologists working in academic or museum jobs. The total number of individuals interviewed was 58, as two of the staff members of the field school were also academic archaeologists and so fit into both groups.

Archaeologists, particularly academic archaeologists, may focus on any number of topics, time periods, or cultural groups. They may conduct field work within their own town or county or they may travel thousands of miles and work with foreign institutions or governments. In order to maintain some commonality among my subject pool, I therefore opted to interview archaeologists within Ohio or who had worked previously within Ohio. At the time of the interviews all but four of my subjects were employed within the state of Ohio, and all of my interview subjects had been employed or conducted archaeology within the state of Ohio at some point. As such, all of my interview subjects were working within (or had worked under) the same political and economic framework. State laws regarding the handling of cultural resources would affect any archaeologists working with materials in Ohio, and the academic, public, and government institutions for which archaeologists might work would be affected by budget cuts or fluctuations in the state economy.

Field school participants had been asked to take part in the ethnographic study and the follow-up interviews in the summer of 2014, just prior to the start of the school itself. Upon returning home I emailed students and staff and set up interviews. Some individuals opted not to be interviewed, while others simply never responded to the emails and thus self-selected out of the interview portion of the study. I recruited professional archaeologists into the study starting with my own personal networks, as I have worked in both CRM and academic jobs. I made connections through the Ohio Archaeological Council by talking with members and attending one of their business meetings in the fall of 2015. I also emailed archaeologists working at CRM firms and academic institutions throughout Ohio to recruit interview subjects, sending them an overview of the study, the consent form, and my contact information (see Appendix B). In all,

17 of the archaeologists interviewed were individuals I knew prior to conducting this study, while the remaining 22 interview subjects were recruited through email or by introduction via existing contacts.

Table 2 shows the demographic breakdown of the field school, CRM, and academic interview subjects. One of the most notable pieces of demographic information here is, once, again, the racial breakdown of the sample. All of the CRM and academic archaeologists interviewed here were white. In recruiting for this study, I made every effort to reach out to as many archaeologists in CRM and academic positions as possible throughout the state of Ohio.

Anecdotally, it seems that there are not many people of color in professional archaeology in the

United States. In my time in both CRM and academic archaeology positions, I rarely, if ever, encountered non-white archaeologists and many of the archaeologists I have spoken to note the same. Unfortunately there are no official statistics showing the racial composition of archaeologists from either the professional associations or the government. A 2005 salary survey

64 conducted by Society for American Archaeology and the Society for Historical Archaeology of

2,143 of their members did not ask participants their race. While the BLS shows that in 2015, out of the approximately 45,000 total individuals employed as “miscellaneous social scientists and related workers” (the BLS category which includes archaeologists), it does not break the category down by race. Approximately 1,404,000 individuals are employed in the parent occupational group, “life, physical, and social science occupations,” and 6.1% of that total is made up of African Americans, 14.5% are Asian Americans, and 7.0% are Hispanic or Latino individuals. (USBLS 2015a) While the numbers show racial disparity in overall employment in the life, physical, and social sciences, they do not give us a more precise picture of the makeup of the professional archaeological community.

Table 2: Race and gender of the interview subjects.

Academic/ Field School CRM Museum White 19 18 21

African-American 1 0 0

Hispanic/Latino 1 0 0

Male 4 12 13

Female 17 6 8

Table 3: The age breakdown of the interviewed CRM and academic archaeologists.

CRM Academic/Museum

20-29 2 0

30-39 2 2

40-49 8 6

50-59 2 4

60-69 4 7

70-79 0 1

Not given 0 1

The professional archaeologists I interviewed had at minimum a bachelor’s degree and, as Table 4 shows, a total of 6 had master’s degrees and 25 held doctoral degrees. Degree level denotes a key divide between the academic and the CRM archaeologists. It is nearly impossible to obtain an archaeology job in an academic institution without a Ph.D., and it is not necessary to have a Ph.D. to be a CRM archaeologist. At the academic level, individuals hired into tenure- track positions at four year institutions, especially those with graduate programs, are generally expected to have a Ph.D. In CRM positions, Department of the Interior Standards require a principal investigator (i.e. the person managing the project) to have a master’s degree (36 CFR

61, Appendix A). For individuals planning for go into CRM archaeology, it is therefore not cost- effective to get a Ph.D. Some CRM archaeologists are able to work as field supervisors or in other managerial positions with a bachelor’s degree, trading on their experience rather than their degree status, but it is far more common for professional archaeologists to have a master’s degree or higher.

Table 4: Degrees held by the interview subjects.

CRM Academic/Museum

B.A. 7 1

M.A./M.Sc. 5 1

Ph.D. 6 19

In Chapter 3 I noted that the BLS show a salary divide between academic non-academic anthropologists and archaeologists. Here, the fourteen full-time CRM individuals who provided salary information made an average of $66,714 per year. The median salary was $68,000 and the salaries ranged between $45,000 per year to $100,000 per year. Nine of the CRM archaeologists were employed at consulting firms and had an average salary of $68,778, while the remaining archaeologists worked for state government agencies and averaged $63,200 per year. The thirteen full-time academic archeologists who provided salary information ranged from $40,000 per year to $110,000 per year, with a median salary of $70,000 and an average salary of $70,077 per year. Nine of these archaeologists were employed at colleges or universities, and their salaries averaged $72,600. The academic archaeologists averaged a lower salary than the national average for anthropologists and archaeologists in college or university settings, which was $86,180 in 2015 (USBLS 2015b). The archaeologists working for state agencies made more than the national average for anthropologists and archaeologists employed by the state government, which was $55,940 in 2015, as did the archaeologists working in consulting positions, who nationally averaged $62,850 in 2015. (USBLS 2015b) Despite the fact that the salaries provided by my interview subjects were much closer in range that those provided by the USBLS (which, it must be reiterated, includes both anthropologists and

67 archaeologists), the divide between the academic and the non-academic archaeologists can still be seen.

Table 5: Income breakdown for interview subjects, numbers indicate thousands. Note: some interview subjects worked part-time or seasonally and had variable incomes based on the availability of work.

CRM Academic/Museum 20-39 0 1

40-59 5 6

60-79 7 4

80-99 1 2

100+ 1 1

Variable 2 1 Income Not given 2 6

Table 6: Employment status of interview subjects.

CRM Academic/Museum Full-time or 15 19 tenured Part-time, seasonal, 2 2 or adjunct Other 1 0

A Theoretical Framework

To answer the above questions, I need to understand the internal (mental and emotional) and external (physical) experiences that individuals have in relation to archaeology. I need to understand how people remember developing an interest in archaeology, then how they pursued or are pursuing that interest in school, in their free time, or in their careers. I cannot get a full sense of the ways that people became aware of or became oriented professionally toward

68 archaeology through quantitative data, thus I explore my research questions through two qualitative means: ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviewing. I chose qualitative methods because my research requires developing an in-depth understanding of a social process and the experiences of the individuals who go through it.

Conducting qualitative research allows me to employ a grounded-theory approach to my data collection and analysis. Grounded theory is a technique that allows a researcher to develop a theoretical viewpoint based on the study of action and meaning construction (Charmaz and

Mitchell 2007:160). Ethnography, interviewing, and grounded theory approaches complement one another, as grounded theory can focus the rich descriptive work characteristic of ethnographic and interview research (Charmaz and Mitchell 2007:161-162; Charmaz 2001:335-

341). Using grounded theory, ethnographic data can be simultaneously collected and analyzed and themes emerging early in the data collection process can be identified. Emergent themes can be connected to observed social processes, which can be connected together in a theoretical framework used to illuminate the circumstances in which said processes develop (Charmaz and

Mitchell 2007:160). As data is collected in the field, it can be coded into theoretical categories which allow the researcher to understand the relevant social relationships processes and underlying the phenomena they are studying.

Though I used a grounded theory framework for collecting and analyzing data, I have to acknowledge that my results do not stand apart from existing theoretical paradigms. As a qualitative researcher, if I am to be reflexive about the ways in which my own life experiences may affect my research, I must also be reflexive about the ways that my understanding of social science theory affects my research. Theoretical insight is consistent with constructivist grounded theory, in which the researcher acknowledges the subjectivity she brings to her study (Charmaz

2014:14). Charmaz (2014) explains that research is not value-free, and that “research acts are not given; they are constructed,” (p. 13). Researchers are trained in specific disciplines, and they bring with them ideas about the trajectories of the information they will collect. Understanding and acknowledging one’s theoretical and disciplinary background is an important part of understanding one’s findings.

In designing my research I knew I was interested in professionalization and familiar with the sociological literature on professions. I started collection of the ethnographic and the interview data without a preconceived theoretical notion as to how it would later be interpreted.

To focus my research I used theoretical sampling, a strategy in which categories are refined as theoretical concepts emerge during the data collection process (Charmaz 2014:192-193). As I conducted interviews, I began to understand concepts that were important to my subjects. Some of the categories on the general interview guide I had developed elicited considerable discussion from my subjects and opened up new conceptual pathways; other categories fell away. For example, in the initial interviews I asked subjects “what skills do you think are imperative to being an archaeologist?” I had expected responses detailing a technical skill set, and, to some degree, I got that. What I also got were in-depth discussions about the values, attitudes, and character traits an archaeologist should possess, as well as advice on how diverse non- archaeological skills could be parlayed into archaeological practice. In subsequent interviews I therefore explored the character of the archaeologist and its link to archaeological practice.

While initial coding and comparison of coded material was completed without using an extant theoretical framework, as I developed more precise subcodes I started to see overarching patterns throughout my data. One key concept that emerged from the interview data was a discussion of professional identity and the ways that those professional identities were extensions

70 of personal identities formed in youth. The ethnographic data illuminated ways that participants transitioned from students to novice archaeologists. I began to understand, through analysis of the data, comparison of the codes I developed, and my own continued reading in sociology, that the concepts that emerged from my data extended and draw together some elements of extant theory, particularly the social construction of identity and Bourdieu’s concept of habitus.

Comparison of concepts which emerge from my own research data and existing concepts in sociology is not antithetical to grounded theory, as Charmaz notes that “[grounded theorists] treat our major category(ies) as a concept(s), and…we compare concept with concept, which may include comparing our concept with disciplinary concepts,” (2011:360). Bruce (2007) explains that the nature of the way that social science research is conducted necessitates some level of initial theorizing on the subject one wishes to study as proposals are written, literature is reviewed, participants are sought, and research is designed to be relevant within a discipline (p.

10). Using conceptual categories which emerge from my data to extend or add new meaning to extant theory is also not in opposition to the tenets of grounded theory. Theory can be constructed using existing theoretical background material, so long as the researcher is aware of these preconceptions and, crucially, so long as they are appropriate to the research (Kelle 2005).

Another important point is that the researcher cannot rely on existing theoretical material as a guide for what she may find in her own data, as concepts emerging from the data may render existing theoretical concepts inappropriate or irrelevant to the phenomena being analyzed. “In the same way as ideas must earn a way into the theory, the converse is also true; it is possible that initial ideas will earn a way out,” (Breckenridge and Jones 2009:118). Extant theory can have a place in grounded theory research, and I found that the concepts that emerged from my

71 data analysis were usefully informed (though not monopolized by) by existing theoretical frameworks.

Data Collection Methods

Ethnography

Participant/observation is the process of embedding oneself in a situation or process to study explicit and tacit aspects of a given culture or society (DeWalt and DeWalt 2002:1-2). As the name suggests, participant/observation involves the researcher to both observe and participate in the culture she is studying, two processes that may at times be at odds with one another. According to DeWalt and DeWalt (2002), the researcher engaging in participant/observation must be conscious of the level of her involvement in the social setting she studies (p.19-21). In my research, my role as an archaeological team leader dictated that my level of participation was complete, as I had full membership into the social phenomenon I was studying. As a team leader, I worked with a small group of four to six students on a daily basis, overseeing a small part of the larger research project, giving hands-on guidance, and taking down information as students conducted the pedestrian survey. Another aspect of my job as a team leader was to ensure the health and safety of the students as we made our way through rough terrain in remote areas of a foreign country. Finally, I was responsible for the data my team collected, and was expected to provide site reports, weekly summary reports, and a complete overview report describing and analyzing what we had encountered in the field.

Working as a team leader, it became apparent early in the research that time would be an issue, particularly in regards to taking notes or recording data. Field notes should be used as reliability checks in ethnographic research (Kirk and Miller 1986). Extensive and coherent field notes can remind the researcher, once removed from the field, of her own progression of

72 understanding over time of the social situation she observed. Thorough field notes which include “how observations were made, under what circumstances, and how they were recorded and analyzed” can also afford other researchers the opportunity to reproduce one’s work, which is one way to test reliability (DeWalt and DeWalt 2002:95). Field notes and memos are an essential part of the grounded theory approach, as they provide the substantive material from which to draw emerging themes in the ethnographic data.

Because of the intense working conditions I was often unable to take notes in the field, and therefore adopted several strategies to give myself time to complete both my archaeological and sociological research. As all archaeologists use a field notebook, I found it beneficial to use mine as a way of both taking ethnographic notes and using my archaeological notes as a contextual touchstone for the events of the day. Each day I typed memos in the evenings, after fieldwork had been completed. Eventually the workload became so great that I asked for and received permission to skip the group dinners that staff and students were required to attend. I used a LiveScribe smartpen, which allowed me to record audio material and, though the use of a digital paper notebook, create PDFs of my handwritten notes (which could eventually be converted to word documents). Finally, I had a few field days during which I was able to just observe and take notes either in the field or at the apotheke.

In-depth Interviewing

Qualitative researchers have long used interviewing techniques to illuminate personal experiences of social situations and processes. DeWalt and DeWalt note that while participant/observation can yield rich contextual data, it is most effective when used in conjunction with other research methods (2002). Likewise, Lofland and colleagues consider the combination of participant/observation and interviewing a preferred way of gathering “the

73 richest possible data” (2006:18). Through interviewing, the researcher has the opportunity to give further context to the socially embedded phenomena she has observed in an ethnographic setting, and develop an understanding of the thoughts and feelings of the individuals involved.

Interviews ranged from just over 40 minutes to over two hours in length and were conducted in person, via Skype, or over the phone. While I would have preferred to have had face-to-face interviews with all of my subjects, this simply was not possible. I found that Skype interviews afforded a high level of comfort for the subjects, as it had a face-to-face element but also afforded them some control over the interview setting. In a few cases my subjects did not have Skype or specifically requested phone interviews.

I designed two separate interview schedules, one for the field school participants and one for the professional archaeologists (see Appendix C). In the case of the two field school staff members who were also academic archaeologists, I combined the interview schedules to get information about both the field school and their experiences as professional archaeologists. The interview questionnaires cover a wide range of topics about the subjects’ personal history, their experiences in becoming a professional archaeologist, their thoughts on a number of issues in archaeology (i.e. curation, ethics in archaeology, and laws governing archaeological practice), and their views on the profession of archaeology. I used the questionnaires as a general guide for the interviews, but found it fruitful to let my subjects elaborate and explore topics in ways they felt were meaningful. In doing so, I found that the subjects described events or discussed issues they felt were relevant to their experiences as professional archaeologists, but more importantly they implicitly told me about their professional identity—what a professional archaeologist is— and how they acquired that identity. The students from the field school recounted their

74 experiences and in doing so, they gave me insight into ways they felt they had been transformed from students into novice archaeologists.

Data Analysis and Organization

The data I collected were recorded in field notes, memos, video files, and audio tracks.

During the field school I took traditional pen-and-paper notes and typed memos, but I also used a

LiveScribe pen, which can be used to create PDF documents of the written notes. The pen is also equipped with a digital recorder and is able to record audio. Audio recorded while taking notes can be synced to the digital document, so that the note-taker can hear what was being recorded at the precise moment a set of notes were being written. I did not find it easy to manage the recorder in the field and felt it could sometimes feel intrusive and impede natural conversation, as the students and staff were all curious about the pen and would sometimes comment on my use of it (e.g. “Are you recording me right now?”). Its presence, therefore, sometimes marked me as a sociologist rather than as a participant in the field school and affected the way students and staff interacted with me. I did use the notebooks with digital paper to take notes whenever possible, however, as I wanted to have both hard and digital copies of my handwritten notes. Once I had PDFs of my handwritten notes, I was then able to use a program called MyScript to create Word documents out of those notes. I therefore have my handwritten notes, digital copies of the handwritten notes, and Word documents of the notes.

As noted above, I conducted the interviews in person, over the phone, and via Skype, which necessitated learning to use recording programs or apps. In addition to a digital tape recorder, I used Evaer to record Skype sessions and Record My Call to record phone interviews.

Each interview was recorded at least two ways (usually with a software program and a tape recorder). As I went through the data before transcribing it, I found that some of it needed to be

75 cleaned or that minor technical problems produced garbled segments of the recordings. In particular I found the Skype audio or video to be the most problematic, as the quality of the recording varied depending on quality of the internet connection. In some cases the call would be dropped, stopping the audio and video recording, and then reconnecting it, starting a new audio and video file. In some cases I had two or three audio files for one interview, each file containing a segment of the complete interview. To create the clearest and more complete audio possible, I used a computer program called Free Studio Audio Converter to convert all of the audio into the same format (mp4) and then used another computer program called Audacity to clean the audio files, edit out non-interview material, and to splice together recordings to replace garbled or inaudible segments. In this way I ensured that each audio file was as clean, clear, and concise as possible before transcription. Once the recordings had been cleaned, many of them were sent out for transcription. For the portion of the transcription that I completed, I used

Express Scribe software and a foot pedal. All transcripts were completed in Word, and all the finished Word documents were loaded into MAXQDA for coding and analysis. Finally, the names of all participants were changed during the analysis and writing stages of the research. I chose the names from the Social Security Administration’s “Top Names over the Last 100

Years” to ensure generality (SSA 2015).

To analyze the transcripts, I first took a hands-on analog approach. Fifteen transcripts were open coded line-by-line to identify common themes that appeared throughout the interviews. After developing a set of common subjects and themes, I created a set of codes and uploaded them into MAXQDA. I then went through all of the transcripts line-by-line, modifying the codes as more emerged, others merged together, and some appeared to decrease in relevance.

To identify underlying themes between my codes, I created excel spreadsheets of coded

76 segments to look for connections between concepts. For example, I identified several character traits that interview subjects noted were important in the pursuit of archaeology. I called this overarching code “Norms/character traits.” It contained 18 subcodes, ranging from risk-taking behavior to cultural sensitivity. In looking at the coded segments for each of these subcodes, I was able to then divide these into themes: my interview subjects were outlining the features of the professional archaeological identity. These axial codes make up a core construct in my data: the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist. In this manner, I was able to identify variables that related to my research questions: the specific habitus of the archaeologist, the general habitus of the individual oriented to archaeology, and the mechanisms during the field school that honed the general habitus toward the specific habitus.

Table 7: Codes, subcodes, and axial codes leading to core research constructs. Code Sub-codes Axial codes Core construct Norms/ 1. Independence 1. Adaptability Specific habitus character traits 2. Competitive 2. Commitment of the 3. Culturally sensitive 3. Learning by doing archaeologist 4. Curious/seeking 4. Stoic 5. Immersion 6. Perseverance 7. Sacrifice 8. Adversity 9. Thrown in to learn/learn by doing 10. Difficult is fun/good 11. Diversity in experience, methods, subject 12. Submissiveness to experience 13. Team player/teamwork 14. Toughness 15. Adventure 16. Adversity – break down to learn 17. Personal initiative/drive 18. Risk

Positionality and Ethics

As positionality can affect the chief instrument of data collection (me), it is necessary to discuss how my social and professional characteristics play a part in my understanding of archaeology. In demographic terms, I am white, female, and 40 years old. I am a professional archaeologist myself, with a B.A. in anthropology and an M.A. in medieval archaeology. I taught archaeology and anthropology at a mid-sized university in the Midwest for six years. I was an archaeological intern at the Ohio Department of Transportation and later held a full-time staff archaeology position. Over the course of my career I have worked on numerous archaeological projects, large and small, in a variety of settings. Under the criteria in 36 CFR 61,

I am qualified to be a principal investigator on an archaeological site. Although I am not a member, I am also qualified to be included on the RPA. I have written numerous archaeological reports, for both academic and CRM projects. My background as an archaeologist gives me an insider’s view into the world of archaeology, but it also means that I come into the study of the specific habitus of the archaeologist with that habitus already formed in myself. I have to acknowledge that part of my physical, mental, and even emotional understanding of archaeology is probably inaccessible to conscious scrutiny, but I can reflect on my personal history as an archaeologist and identify social and cultural structures that affected my own professionalization.

As I conducted my research, reflexive insight became a key part of understanding and interpreting my data. I found the environmental conditions and housing situation at the field school to be fairly normal. In talking with other archaeologists, I understood concepts like the

“curation crisis,”1 and “significance”2 without having to pause for explanation. I had a good idea of the kinds of jobs that would await students of archaeology, as I had once been one myself.

1 “Curation crisis” refers to the often inadequate or underfunded care and management of archaeological collections. 2 “Significance” (especially in CRM) refers to standards by which archaeological materials are evaluated. In the United States, a site deemed significant meets the National Register of Historic Places’ Criteria for Evaluation. 78

The Field Director, Assistant Field Director, Field Manager, Apotheke Manager, and most of the team leaders were white women, thus I had no difficulties in developing rapport with my fellow staff members during my ethnographic work. I had to step back, though. Why was wading hip- deep through thorny shrubs on the side of a mountain a perfectly ordinary field day? What had led me to that outlook? How had I formed opinions on which archaeological materials should be considered significant, and which should be preserved in curated storage facilities? How had my employment as an archaeologist colored my view of the kinds of jobs one could get with a degree focused on archaeology? Would my research experiences have been different had I been male, particularly my ethnographic research experiences?

When I started my research, I knew that I would need to be reflexive and look at my archaeological self through the eyes of my sociological self. What I had not expected were the ethical dilemmas and the emotions that I would encounter as I sought to be both archaeologist and researcher. As I noted above, my role at the field school was as an archaeological team leader. As a team leader, I worked with a small group of four to six students on a daily basis, overseeing a small part of the larger research project, giving hands-on guidance, and taking down information as students conducted the pedestrian survey. Another aspect of my job as a team leader was to ensure the health and safety of the students as we made our way through rough terrain in remote areas of a foreign country.

Once I viewed the field conditions through a sociological lens, I found myself asking whether or not it was ethical to put students in such difficult environmental conditions for long periods of time each day. Several situations arose which tested my ethics as a researcher.

Students were pushed to complete the surface survey for the project, as this field school was not just designed for educational purposes, it was designed for the completion of a specific

79 archaeological research project. This was to be the third and final year of fieldwork for the IASP project, thus all of the survey had to be finished by the end of the field school. Archaeology in the country in which we were working is by permit only, and these permits have stringent conditions and time limits attached to them (the permit for the IASP was for three years and for surface collection only). Because of the time limit, the director of the field school pushed teams to fit in as much work as possible into field days. There were days I felt that the students could be in danger of heat exhaustion or even heat stroke, or days when I knew they were dragging and exhausted. On one particular occasion I felt that one of my student assistants was become overheated, but still hesitated to call the day short because I knew it would mean a possible confrontation or reprimand from the field director. In the end I gave the students a prolonged break while we drove to a Tract near the beach to determine its status (walkable or unwalkable).

Later, during the staff meeting, I noted the condition of my student, but my concerns were not matched by the field director, who felt that the work was difficult but that the student was fine

(as a point of clarity, the student was fine in the end). I still wonder if my response to the situation was inadequate, or if I did what I could within the framework within which I operated as a member of the project. Perhaps more interestingly, I wonder if I would have felt the same if

I had not been engaging in qualitative sociological fieldwork. As a professional archaeologist used to tough field conditions, would I have considered the physical demands placed on the student a normal part of archaeological training?

Reading the above, one might wonder why I would be reprimanded for bringing the students back early from a day in the field, given that one of my jobs as a team leader was to maintain student health and safety. An incident early on in the field school will serve to illustrate the hierarchy of command and the level of power I had in making such decisions on behalf of my

80 students. On the second day of the field school my team, working in tandem with a second team, was assigned to walk a section of remote, steeply terraced, heavily wooded terrain. Visibility was low in the dense vegetation. As we attempted to walk the Tract, one of the students mis- stepped, fell down the side of a terrace, and injured her wrist. We ended field work for the day and escorted the student back to the apotheke, where she was taken to the hospital and treated for a broken wrist. I was upset at the situation because we had been walking an area that I would personally have deemed unwalkable due to the steep slope and the low ground visibility. I expressed my concerns to the field director, who told me I could determine whether something was unwalkable due to steepness, but not based on ground visibility (I was informed that all areas, regardless of surface visibility, were to be surveyed). The next day, while in the field, I received a call from the field director, who told me that I should work with my student assistants

(i.e. the returning students), who were more familiar with the terrain and with the standards of the field school, to determine whether a Tract was walkable or not. Thus while I technically had the power to make the call, I was not to do it on my own and was to do it based on the parameters set out by the field director rather than my own. The situation described here shows that although I was a team leader, my decisions could be questioned or reversed by the field director. My authority in the field, even in matters concerning ethical practice or the health and safety of my team, could be superseded by those above me in the hierarchy of the field school.

Another ethical issue arose when dealing with the local landowners. Our field school had permission to conduct surface survey over a large area of the island, much of which was remote and uninhabited. There were homes, farms, and businesses in some areas, however. When conducting our surface survey in these areas, landowners or passersby would inquire what we were doing. We were instructed by the field director, returning staff, and returning students to

81 tell people that we were geologists rather than archaeologists. Because of the history of appropriation of national artifacts throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, archaeologists are often greeted with skepticism, distrust, and even anger by many of the local populations. Here, my positionality as a non-native white woman came to the forefront, as I was automatically viewed as a foreigner and was met with suspicion. On the first day of fieldwork I encountered a landowner who belligerently asked in broken English what we were doing. I awkwardly told him we were geologists. I was told this was good, because, “archaeologists, we don’t like. But you’re not archaeologists?”

I grapple with this lie. Obviously it is unethical for an archaeologist to misinform a local population as to her purpose. More than that, the students were learning that in certain circumstances, misinformation is acceptable. Later, in interviews, I asked the students what they felt were important ethical issues that archaeologists faced. They spoke about working responsibly with human remains, reaching out to native groups, and being inclusive with local populations. When asked how they felt about lying to landowners on our own project, the students were often ambivalent or downplayed the behavior. Emily, a returning student, summed up the prevailing attitude quite well:

…I’m still figuring it out, because I think it’s hard because on the one hand you need to go tromping through this person’s yard. You need to get done what you need to get done. You are here to do your job and you are going to do it. But then on other hand you have to sit and think, well how would I feel if all of a sudden this group of foreign weirdoes just came waltzing up on my business. I don’t think I’d be very happy if someone was all of a sudden in my backyard where my dogs are, where my life is. So, I can see both sides of it, and I think it’s a very fine line for what you can get away with and what’s taking, I don’t know if what’s taking things too far is the right word, because I don’t think at least in my experience we’ve ever taken things too far. (Emily, returning student)

Here, the student is expressing her uncertainty at misleading the landowners but is also minimizing the unethical behavior by explaining that we did have permission to be there, that we had archaeological work to do, and that we were not being disruptive or destructive to their property. In the remote, difficult environment of a foreign land I told a lie I felt was necessary for the safety of my students and myself. Almost all of the landowners that confronted us were male, and several were verbally confrontational. As a 5’1” female responsible for a group of people in very isolated area of a foreign country, the lie seemed a small price to pay for a sense of security. Upon reflection, however, I wonder why the project was structured in such a way as to normalize this behavior, and I wonder how, as a team leader, I could have done things differently in order to model better behavior for my students.

My positionality as a professional archaeologist made my research possible. Had I not been a professional archaeologist I would not have fully appreciated the ethical dilemmas I encountered. As an outsider, I would not have truly understood the nuances of the relationships between the students, the staff, and the local population. I would not have felt the struggle within the hierarchy of the staff of the field school. The internal pressures between student health and safety and the needs to the project would not have made sense to me, and so I would have overlooked some of the factors that an archaeologist must contend with in the field.

The Credibility of the Data

I employed several methods to ensure that my data helped me construct authentic and credible representations of the experiences and thoughts of my subjects. The question of gauging validity and reliability in qualitative research has been addressed by a number of scholars (e.g. Creswell and Miller 2000; Golafshani 2003; Guba and Lincoln 1994; Kirk and

Miller 1986; Lincoln and Guba 1985; Maxwell 1992). I find the most useful way of thinking

83 about of validity and reliability is to conceptualize them as establishing the credibility of the research by developing understandings in the data (Lincoln and Guba 1985; Maxwell 1992).

Guba and Lincoln (1985) consider the credibility of data to be a measure of how trustworthy a researcher’s findings are. They suggest several techniques to maximize the credibility of one’s data and the interpretations of that data (Lincoln and Guba 1985). The theoretical and methodological orientation of the researcher will often determine which techniques will work best in a particular study (Creswell and Miller 2000; Lincoln and Guba

1985). In my research, credibility of the data is partially established through prolonged engagement and persistent observation in the field (Lincoln and Guba 1985:301-305). I participated in the entire field season, and I lived, worked, and socialized in the same conditions as my research subjects. My immersion in my research setting was complete, but to ensure that I was able to view my surroundings through a sociological lens I also engaged in reflexive examination (mostly in my evening memos) of my role as an archaeological team leader.

Researcher reflexivity, or the activity of disclosing one’s own biases and assumptions, is another method of ensuring credibility in data collection and analysis (Creswell and Miller 2000:127).

Finally, by using both ethnographic and interview methods and by interviewing three sets of subjects (field school participants, academic archaeologists, and CRM archaeologists) I was able to incorporate member-checking and triangulation procedures into my research.

Triangulation means confirming themes or developing more complete understanding of the phenomenon one is studying by using multiple methods, theories, investigators, or sources

(Creswell and Miller 2000:127). It can be a way of enhancing the data acquired from one method or source. I used the interviews with the field school participants to augment my observations at the field school, and I was able to find thematic consistencies (e.g. orientations

84 toward fieldwork, educational experiences, opinions on ethical issues) across my interview groups. Additionally, discussing the events at the field school at a later date with the participants of the school was a way of testing the trustworthiness of my notes and observations through member checking. I asked them to describe events at the field school in their own words, then compared their narratives to my notes as a way of increasing the accuracy of my interpretations.

Summary

To understand the way that general habitus is transformed into the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist, I used two qualitative methods: ethnography and in-depth interviewing. I chose these methods to develop an understanding of the mental and social orientations individuals have toward archaeology, and to see how those are shaped into a professional archaeological identity. I observed students going through a field school, which can be a pivotal transformational experience for people who go on to become professional archaeologists. Professional academic and CRM archaeologists recounted their experiences in pursuing their careers in the interviews. The methods I chose provided me with rich data to answer my research questions. Software programs such as Audacity and ExpressScribe helped me clean and prepare my data, and I used MAXQDA to organize and code the data. Meticulous and responsible handling of the data and consideration of issues of data credibility increase my confidence in my interpretations and, ultimately, my findings.

In the next chapter I will discuss findings from my data. I will start by analyzing the data from the interviews I conducted with CRM and academic archaeologists. I find that the professional archaeologists I interviewed described an orientation toward archaeology that often began in childhood and lasted into adulthood. I consider this orientation to be their general habitus, to use Bourdieu’s concept of socialization. The general habitus of my subjects had four

85 main features: subjects were attracted to the adventure and romance of archaeology, they had encountered archaeological sites or materials within their physical environment, they preferred hands-on learning experiences, and they had a high level of intellectual curiosity. These elements, as I will show in subsequent chapters, formed the foundation of their professional archaeological identity.

CHAPTER 5

YESTERDAY’S PERSON: AN EXAMINATION OF GENERAL HABITUS

Int: what got you interested in [archaeology] to begin with? Frank: I guess when I was younger I was really interested in history and rocks as well as being outdoors, just growing up watching like Indiana Jones and…doing Boy Scouts kind of encouraged me to be outdoors and kind of search after history, so archaeology seemed like a natural fit…

The above is a quote from one of my interview subjects, Frank, a CRM archaeologist who works as a seasonal field technician. I asked him (and all of my interview subjects) to tell me how they had become interested in archaeology. What followed were discussions about childhood influences and journeys through young adulthood that directed my subjects to archaeology as a discipline and later, a career. Common themes emerged as they told me what brought them to archaeology, and it became clear that their personal histories and past experiences had shaped an interest in archaeology that continued throughout adulthood. The connection between present action and past circumstance fits well with Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which worked as a general theoretical principle that helped me to understand and organize my data. In discussing the way that personal history comes to direct our actions and become second nature, Bourdieu (quoting Durkheim) tells us, “[i]t is yesterday’s man who inevitably predominates in us, since the present amounts to little compared with the long past in the course of which we were formed and from which we result,” (1977:78). In this chapter on the interviews conducted with professional CRM and academic archaeologists, all of who described their path to professional practice. My interview subjects reveal the general habitus

87 that led them to archaeology as they developed an interest which would eventually become a career path.

Through my interview subjects, I examine how “yesterday’s person” is remembered, and how early experiences oriented that person toward a career in the specific field of archaeology.

Bourdieu argues that habitus is the way that our personal history comes to direct our actions to becomes second nature. Habitus is the orientation to action produced by a culmination of the experiences, circumstances, and stimuli that we encounter. Though we are often unaware of or spend little time reflecting on our habitus, it draws our attention and guides our responses to present experiences, circumstances, and stimuli. (Bourdieu 1977:79) The concept of habitus also reminds us that exchanges between people are not merely one-on-one interactions, but are interactions with the social and cultural structures that direct that person’s habitus (Bourdieu

1977:81). General habitus, according to Bourdieu, is lex insita: our orientation to the world that we develop through the circumstances and interactions of our upbringing. It is the way we internalize and understand our place within the overlying social structure, and it directs our interactions with other individuals (or agents) within that social structure. From this general habitus we develop our specific habitus, in which interactions between individuals of a similar general habitus are unconsciously coordinated so as to create a consensus of meaning, causing

“practices and works to be immediately intelligible and foreseeable, and hence taken for granted,” (Bourdieu 1977:80). Among members of a group habitus becomes homogenized and defines group or class membership through shared linguistic and behavioral cues

(Bourdieu1977:81-82).

As a researcher, I am aware of the pitfalls of asking subjects to rely on memory in recounting a series of events. Events may be mis-remembered, details forgotten, and times and

88 dates jumbled. More importantly, some events can be assigned more or less significance based on subsequent events. Take, for example, the child who wishes to become an astronaut. If she becomes one, then looking back into the past, she will remember and ascribe deep meaning to every moment that reinforced her love of space and her trajectory to becoming an astronaut.

Asked to recount why she became an astronaut in adulthood, she might reminisce on watching a space shuttle launch on television, or a trip to an air and space museum. If instead she chooses a different career as an adult, those same events may still be sentimental, but they will lose the connection to her present situation. In the same vein, asking professional archaeologists to recount their career trajectories means asking for a subjective version of personal history.

What is important in my research, however, is not an objective retelling of a person’s past, but the way that my subjects remember their path to professional archaeology. Because I am interested in “yesterday’s person” and that person’s connection to the present professional archaeologist, the meaning that they ascribe to events in childhood or young adulthood holds analytical value for my research. Their recollections help me understand the social and cultural institutions that shaped their orientation toward archaeology mentally, emotionally, and physically. Asking subjects to retell their experiences also provides a temporal context to the events of their lives. The context of time is important in understanding habitus because

“practice…is constructed in time, that time gives it its form, and the order of a succession, and therefore its direction and meaning,” (Bourdieu 1990:98). As the individual masters the practice of archaeology, their general habitus is transformed over time to the specific habitus (discussed in the following chapter) of the archaeologist, which then legitimizes and reproduces the practice of archaeology (i.e. cyclically acts as a “structuring structure”) (Bourdieu 1990:53; Bourdieu and

Passeron 2000:47-48). Discussion of general habitus also lends itself to a discussion in the following chapter about the hierarchy of cultural capital within the profession of archaeology.

Primary Habitus and Early Disposition

According to Greek mythology, Athena sprang from the head of Zeus, fully formed and ready for her role as a warrior goddess. Outside of myths and legends, no one is quite so prepared for their career that early in life. Culture, language, and setting are the context of habitus, or the “systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures,” (Bourdieu 1990:53). The settings in which we find ourselves throughout our lives orient us to the way that we see the world. They influence the way we interact physically and socially with other people and institutions, even long after we leave them. Early dispositions are formed in our childhood homes by parents, friends, and family. Our dispositions are then reformed by subsequent arbiters of culture, such as teachers, in other cultural institutions, such as schools. The earliest phase of habitus, primary habitus, is a

“characteristic of a group or class, which is the basis for the subsequent formation of any other habitus,” (Bourdieu and Passeron 2000:42).

Inculcation of new cultural structures may successfully reshape a person’s primary habitus, depending on how similar the new cultural structures are to those which form the foundation of the primary habitus (Bourdieu and Passeron:2000:43). If a classroom reinforces a manner of interacting with authority figures that a child is accustomed to, then the social and cultural messages given within that classroom will be better received by that child (Bourdieu and

Passeron 2000:43-44). A child (and, eventually, an adult) that internalizes and accepts the content and form of the educational system, then, is one that has been primed to do so within their earliest environment. Likewise, a child may refine his or her primary habitus in other

90 settings which bear similarities to the social and cultural structures of their early childhood.

Entrance into competitive sports, adoption of musical instruments, or memberships to organizations such as Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts may be successful in honing habitus when it builds off of previous orientations toward the world. Pedagogy that is able to reiterate the hierarchy and structures learned in the formation of the primary habitus will seem to the learner to be natural, and so will be adopted mentally and embodied in the actions and reactions of the learner (Bourdieu 1990:69).

Through my interviews I found that my subjects, professional archaeologists, connected their love of archaeology to their childhood or young adulthood, and that there was an underlying set of dispositions and attitudes that many had in common. The elements of general habitus that my interview subjects shared were a romantic notion of discovery or archaeology, a feeling of physical connection to archaeological sites or materials, a preference for hands-on or experiential learning, and a sense of intellectual curiosity. Table 8 shows how many interview subjects possessed these elements of general habitus. A total of 64% (25 out of the 39) interview subjects recalled being fascinated with the romance of archaeology and having an inclination for hands- on learning in their youth. A total of 69% (27 out of the total 39) discussed interaction with archaeological sites or objects, and 72% (28 out of the total 39) noted having intellectual curiosity about a wide range of subjects as children or young adults.

Table 8: Number of interview subjects who discussed elements of general habitus.

General Habitus CRM Academic/Museum Total (out of 39)

Romance of Archaeology 16 9 25 Physical Environment 13 14 27

Hands-on Learning 11 14 25 Intellectual Curiosity 13 15 28

Archaeology and the Romance of Discovery

The first element of general habitus revealed by my interview subjects is a fascination with the adventure and romance of archaeology. Many of the academic and CRM archaeologists interviewed indicated that they had developed an interest in archaeology from a young age.

Some had learned what archaeology was as children and had maintained a fascination with it throughout their lives. Harold, Eugene, and Nathan remember being captivated by archaeology in their youth. Each of them wanted to be an archaeologist when they grew up. They viewed archaeology as an occupation or perhaps as a persona, like truck driver, astronaut, or park ranger.

Harold: As far back as I can remember like 2nd grade, I’ve wanted to be an archaeologist. There were times in there when it was like, oh yeah I want to be an astronaut and I want to be a marine, U.S. Marine or something. But I really had the serious interest in archaeology as long as I’ve known there was such a thing.

Eugene: I had told people I wanted to be an archaeologist since I was four years old. Int: So you knew from a very early age. Eugene: I knew from a very early age that's what I wanted to do.

Nathan: I guess I always had an interest in, I always said I was going to be a truck driver, an archeologist or a park ranger as a child.

What was it that so captivated my subjects about archaeology? The answer seems to be that they had a fascination with the exoticism of travel and romance of discovery. The concept of journeying to foreign lands or of finding objects that would transport one into the past held their attention. June, a CRM archaeologist working at a consulting firm, explained that her father’s stories about the places he saw as an ambulance driver in World War II initiated her interest in history and travel. Her story is an example of the formation of primary habitus, as communication with her father at a young age influenced her view of history.

June: …since I was a little kid I was always fascinated by history. I think that comes from my parents. My dad was actually an ambulance driver in World War 11 world and he travelled with Montgomery’s armies through Jordan and Africa and then up through Italy. He never talked about being in the war, he always talked about the places that he saw which I always found really interesting.

Harold, an academic archaeologist, recounts how a childhood fascination with a faraway place led him to choose his college. A childhood worldview influenced an adult decision, as Harold was at a university in the Midwest choosing a graduate program for archaeology when he recalled a grade school project he had done on Carlsbad Caverns:

Harold: Well, truthfully, I had done a diagram when I was in like fourth grade of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and my guidance counselor was reading down the universities who offered PhDs and he came to the University of New Mexico and I went, ‘oh, that sounds cool. I’ll go there,’…but I just picked it like, ‘oh, New Mexico, cool. That’s like Carlsbad Cavern, I know about that.’

The idea that archaeologists had adventures and solved mysteries captured the imaginations of my subjects. George, a CRM archaeologist working for a government agency, likened archaeological work to solving puzzles and mysteries, while Charles, another CRM archaeologist, describes archaeological sites as mystical.

Int: What was it about archeology that so captivated you from a young age? George: Just the idea that you could know things that were thousands and thousands of years old and actually try to understand them and solve mysteries and puzzles and problems. It was all very kind of a romantic. It came out of that Victorian kind of view of the world and the pith helmets, and whether it was in the deserts of Egypt or in the jungles of Guatemala or Burma, everything was foreign and exciting.

Charles: But there was an element of that, of the mysticism and the past…I think that places, archeological sites are special. Maybe for weird reasons, but they are still special places.

Above, June and Harold describe learning about history in the home or in school, but other cultural factors influenced the way my interview subjects understood archaeology in their

93 youth. In Chapter 3 I discussed the adventurous, romanticized portrayal of archaeologists and archaeology in popular media. The professional archaeologists I interviewed were aware of the idealized media view of archaeology and formed ideas about the discipline from popular books, magazines, movies, and television shows.

Virginia: I wanted to be an archaeologist ever since the third grade…and I knew, I would read about Louis Leakey and the discoveries that he was making and I just found it fascinating, and I never lost that fascination, so when I got to college that was my goal.

Patrick: When I was a child…my parents started getting National Geographic Magazine. This may sounds like a classic story but that’s true….When I was old enough to read this is as far as I can recall, I was always fascinated by National Geographic, the photos that were in there…So I think that’s probably my earliest recollection of being interested in archeology, was from images in articles or people I read about in National Geographic magazine. I thought to myself that’s fascinating. I was really fascinated by Louis Leakey who was a paleoanthropologist who worked in Africa in Olduvai Gorge area looking at early man sites, 1 or 2 million years old. I thought, man that’s what I want to do, I want to go to Africa some day and I want to dig and find Hominid fossils and I want to do what he has done.

Patrick’s captivation with National Geographic is particularly interesting, as it calls to mind the mission of nineteenth century editor Gilbert H. Grosvenor to turn scientific discoveries into accessible human interest stories (1957:23). Now in his 60s, Patrick still recalls the sense of wonder that motivated his interest in archaeology, and the part that the photos and articles in

National Geographic played in instilling that wonder. A CRM archaeologist working in the

Midwest, he remembers the culturally constructed ideal of the archaeologist as an explorer in distant lands even though his personal experience with archaeology has been less exotic and far more geographically limited.

Some subjects remember television shows and movies that influenced their perception of archaeology as a profession. The Hollywood image of the swashbuckling, heroic-yet-academic

Indiana Jones was not lost on CRM archaeologists Kenneth and John, for example.

Interestingly, even though John acknowledges that he knew that archaeology was done in his area of the world, his early impression was that archaeologists worked in much more exotic settings.

Int: …when did you first get interested in archaeology? Kenneth: I would be lying if I didn’t say Indiana Jones. I mean I’m sure that’s probably a fairly popular answer for people around my age.

John: I graduated in high school ‘89. So, at the time the third Indiana Jones was just released. So, I love those 3 movies, just loved them…[W]hen I thought of archeology at that time I thought Egypt. I thought the Middle East. I thought Europe….I didn’t think of it much here. I mean I knew they did it here, but I just didn’t think of it. What popped into my mind was always mummies and the pyramids and the sphinx, all that stuff…I thought it was all the old world stuff.

Other subjects recalled how television shows introduced them to the concept of anthropology or archaeology. Kathleen, a CRM archaeologist, notes that she had watched history channel specials as a high school students, and indicated that the show Bones, a mystery drama featuring a forensic anthropologist, had tremendous influence on her.

Int: what sparked your interest in archeology? Kathleen: I’ve always really liked history and I’ve always really liked writing, but I was initially planning to be an English major. But a couple of years before a show came out called Bones and I know now that it is not a very good representation of forensic anthropology but at the time I was just like, ‘anthropology is the coolest thing in the world.’ As a 14-year-old kid watching TV, like it was cool stuff.

From the above we can see that social context and media had a significant influence on the way my subjects thought about archaeology as a profession from a young age. For some, such as June, interest in archaeology formed within the primary socializing institutions of the family and the home. For others, popular media representations of archaeology sparked a fascination with the romance of the discipline. The symbolic construction of the archaeologist or of archaeological work through media shaped the way that my subjects would think about the profession. It served to give them a lasting impression of what it meant to be an archaeologist by connecting archaeological work with adventure, travel, discovery, and mystery.

Physical Environment and Habitus

The second feature of the general habitus of the professional archaeologists I interviewed is a physical connection to archaeological sites or objects. Habitus is adopted through the body as well as the mind. In order for habitus to be fully inculcated into an individual’s identity, they must learn the values and orientations through physical experiences. Through physical interaction of the individual with that environment in which habitus is formed, we can “endlessly enumerate the values given body, made body, by the hidden persuasion of an implicit pedagogy which can instill a whole cosmology,” (Bourdieu 1990:69). Bourdieu (2000; 1990) calls the physical incorporation of habitus the formation of bodily knowledge or bodily hexis. Living in areas where archaeological features are prominent or where archaeological materials could be regularly found made archaeology a more tangible and seemingly natural part of the subject’s formative context. Being in contact with archaeological materials in a non-museum setting, seeing it as part of one’s everyday landscape, interwoven with the built or farmed environment in which one lived seems to have made it more accessible and normalized for some of my interview subjects. Scott, Gregory, and Aaron were raised in more rural environments in areas of the

Midwest that have high concentrations of archaeological materials and/or large, visible archaeological features. Scott, a CRM archaeologist, grew up on a farm and recalls that both he and his father would often come across archaeological materials. Seeing artifacts on a regular basis fueled Scott’s curiosity about the objects and the people who made them.

Scott: I don’t remember when I was interested in archeology because I started when I was like 3 or 4. Int: How did that happen? Scott: We lived on a farm, we were all bored. Int: Okay. So, you were finding things on the farm? Scott: My dad did and then I would go see those things and wonder what they were. So, I’ve always been asking questions what is this stuff?

Gregory explains that his family’s inclination to the outdoors activities and neighbors who collected artifacts helped him develop an enthusiasm for history and “Indian stuff.”

Gregory: Well, I grew up in the rural area. My father…was very into history and we were an outdoors family…a lot of hunting, a lot of being outdoors. I mean, I was just interested in maps and interested in history and interested in ancient Indian stuff as a kid. Our neighbors …well, they were artifact collectors a little bit.

Aaron recalls seeing archaeological sites near his home, and watching archaeologists investigate them. He lived in an area with extant archaeological remains, which gave him the opportunity to interact with them on a regular basis.

Aaron: that's a fair question, I grew up in…the Hopewell heartland of the world and I remember watching archaeologists dig at Mound City Group which is now Hopewell Culture Historical Park. When I was in Chillicothe I remember watching them, my mother took my brothers and I there in the early sixties to watch them when they were digging those mounds to reestablish their actual location because there had been a renovation of that site… so I got exposed to archaeology very young through that and also just because of where I lived.

George and Adam, both CRM archaeologists, were raised in more suburban/urban contexts but were still exposed to the history and archaeology of their surroundings. George participated in an urban archaeological excavation, while Adam developed an interest in the geology and history of his surroundings.

George: Archeology was one of those kind of fun things, and I got to do a little volunteer dig on the weekends with, um, well what was their name? It was the downtown archaeology, they were revitalizing all of old downtown Alexandria….they had this place downtown on the water, it was at the old torpedo factory warehouse where they set up shop and I think…it was run out one of the universities. Int: How old were you when you were doing this? George: Oh God, junior high, high school somewhere in there. I started out digging privies. Int: So, when you were in junior high and high school you knew what an archeologist was, did you know that’s what you wanted to do? George: Yeah. Int: Yeah? George: Probably that’s all I ever really wanted to do.

Adam: Well I grew up in Cincinnati. If you study geology or paleontology, Cincinnati, Ohio is known because of the outcroppings of Ordovician fossils and rocks. So I was at cul-de-sac subdivision at the bottom of the hill. So when they were they building these houses they kind of pushed all the stuff to the bottom, so we had a big back yard but it was just littered with limestone full of fossils. So I grew up as a kid really as a rock hound and loving history, but obviously ancient history.

Judy, an academic archaeologist, was influenced by the cultural institutions available in her area. She grew up in a place with excellent museums that she recalled visiting as a summer treat in her youth.

Judy: Well, the first memory that I have is when I was in 6th grade and we did a Greek and Roman project in school and I wanted to make authentic costumes for my Barbie’s…and that assignment really stuck with me…But then, I grew up outside of DC and both my parents were teachers, so my mom would take us to the Smithsonian in the summers

and I loved going to the Natural History Museum and the American History Museum…and by the time I was a senior in high school I just knew that I wanted to major in archeology.

For some subjects, museums, travel, or even the opportunity to try archaeological fieldwork for themselves left a lasting impression. These formative moments as young children or teenagers gave these future archaeologists a feel for the process of archaeology or showed them the products of archaeological labor. Many recall being influenced by the archaeology of the exotic or unfamiliar rather than by the archaeological materials native to their own area.

Brandon, Sean, Tina, and Judy all had encounters with archaeology outside of the North

American context. Brandon, a CRM archaeologist, remembers seeing a museum exhibit on

Egyptian mummies as a child, an experience that triggered a lifelong passion.

Brandon: Well I think I was interested from a very young age. I think from what my parents told me, I was first interested when we went to see the King Tut exhibit in Chicago when I was 6 or 7 years old…I recall being really kind of blown away by it. I mean it has got gold sarcophagus, there is the mummies and all kinds of precious objects and things that were in these tombs.

Sean and Tina saw archaeological materials outside of the United States as Sean went to Greece and Tina travelled to Israel. Both Sean and Tina are academic archaeologists, and both study

Old World archaeology. Their experiences as young adults would help orient their subsequent archaeological study.

Sean: I had an opportunity when I was in sixth grade to travel to Greece and was able to see a variety of different sites, and that just spurred the interest even further so that was maintained all the way through grade school, junior high, high school.

Tina: …when I was 16 I took a trip to Israel for 5 weeks as part of a Jewish summer camp. That was my first encounter with the tangibility of the ancient for me and I remember being quite impressed and overwhelmed. Ever since that time I’ve been interested in archaeology. 99

While Cheryl, an academic archaeologist, experienced North American archaeology, it was in a field school in the Western United States that immersed her in a landscape and culture very different from her own.

Cheryl: I was always interested from an early age and when I was in high school some friends of my parents knew about an archaeological institute that had a summer field school for high school age kids. Int: Where was this? Cheryl: The field school was at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez Colorado…I went when I was a sophomore in high school when I was sixteen and I loved it, it was really fun and I went back the next two summers, I did three summers there, and it was one of those programs where you do excavation….It was a really great experience, and that just was probably the experience that made me want to continue.

The reader should note here that some subjects discuss the connection between their early archaeological experiences and their later choices in school. My subjects illustrated that transformation of early habitus through subsequent institutions depends on the cultural similarities of the environments in which early and later habitus are formed (Bourdieu and

Passeron 2000:43). Many of my interview subjects were introduced to archaeology by their parents, what Bourdieu and Passeron would call the primary pedagogic authority (2000:42-43).

Scott, Gregory, Aaron, Judy, and Brandon all recall the role that their parents played in introducing them to archaeology or history, either by taking them to museums, archaeological sites, or encouraging them to spend time exploring their surroundings (i.e. develop bodily knowledge). They were primed to accept the way that schooling would later direct their general habitus into the study of the past: through curriculum teaching about history, classics, or archaeology. George, Judy, and Sean note that their early physical and educational encounters with archaeology influenced their later choices in secondary or even tertiary education. More structured school projects or programs connected to the sense of adventure or discovery the

100 subjects associated with learning about the past. The cultural romance of archaeology was preserved and connected to an educational curriculum. The line connecting early habitus, bodily knowledge, and later schooling is critical because for archaeologists, education (specifically attainment of the master’s degree or higher) serves as certification of professional membership.

Hands-on Learning

Following from the above discussion regarding physical setting and bodily learning, the third aspect of the general orientation toward archaeology is an inclination to hands-on learning.

While archaeology is seen as a science and a field of expertise, it is something that is done, something that must be practiced. To learn archaeology one needs to be in physical contact with the data that comprises the archaeological record: objects, features, and the media in which those are found (ex: dirt, gravel, water). Carl, an academic archaeologist and Christopher, a CRM archaeologist, both state that they were certain that they wanted jobs that involved physical work outdoors.

Carl: I knew immediately that whatever I did doing with the past I wanted to get my hands dirty. I knew that archeology was what I wanted to do, not that history is all just sit in the dark library reading data, but I knew that I wanted to actually physically touch history and I thought that archeology was the end course of that.

Int: What was it that attracted you about you that was different from history? Why archeology and not history? Christopher: There was fieldwork. I could be in the field…I could split my time and not just be a researcher.

Both specify that the hands-on approach made the difference between choosing history or archaeology. Here, then, is a connection between the setting in which early habitus was formed and the orientation of the subject to their later career choices. Above, I explained that interaction with the physical environment, rural or urban, and archaeological material had an effect on my subjects’ early impressions of archaeology. I also noted that many were attracted to the romance

101 of discovery associated with archaeology. Carl and Christopher both stress the importance of being “in the field,” in contact with the archaeological record, a sentiment that links environmental interaction with the element of discovery.

Subjects also expressed interest at an early age in handling objects and being in the same landscapes as ancient peoples. Patricia, an academic archaeologist, explains that she felt that being physically in contact with archaeological sites allowed her to experience the landscape with all of her senses, creating a stronger connection with the past.

Int: …what got you interested in archaeology? Patricia: I really liked the adventure of connecting, discovering the past and connecting with the past… I suppose why I liked archaeology the best was because I liked that in archaeology you have contact with the past because you actually got to be in the places where the past took place and see the places they saw, so there was more sensory engagement with the past.

Much like Carl and Christopher, Patricia had been initially interested in history. She was drawn to archaeology because she felt that the physical connection between the places and the objects gave her a better understanding of the peoples of the past. In the above quote she speaks of a

“sensory engagement with the past,” which illustrates the nature of bodily learning and habitus.

According to Bourdieu, “social agents are endowed with habitus, inscribed in their bodies by past experiences. These systems of schemes and perception, appreciation, and action enable them to perform acts of practical knowledge. (2000:141). Developing an understanding of archaeological materials is not just created through the processing of mental information, but also through physical interaction with objects in environments.

Objects are not just a conduit to the past, however. One’s desire to find, collect, and curate the past is a marker of identity: the hunter, the collector, the archaeologist. Culturally produced items are important here for their value as symbols of the past, and the person that

102 collects them becomes, in a sense, their steward. The objects also symbolize the excitement of discovery, as they must be located before they can be collected.

George: But I always thought that I was an archeologist. I was one of the idiots kind of, I always loved going to, when I was a little kid I was always going out and picking up stuff. So, I was always like a collector. I was always looking for things.

George, a CRM archaeologist for a government agency, framed his orientation toward archaeology as an active passion for searching and collecting. As archaeologists are, to him, collectors, he has always viewed himself as an archaeologist. Seeking out interesting pieces of the material record is not just his job, it has been ingrained in his personality from childhood.

Similarly, Joyce, an academic archaeologist, saw archaeology as a natural merging of her interests in history and objects. From a young age she found herself curious about recreating the ways that people might have used objects in the past.

Joyce: My parents had projectile points or maybe it was my grandma had projectile points that I thought were really nice and Indian type cups, they call them Indian paints pots where if you rubbed a brush wet and dipped into the hematite you would get a rusted color I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those and I thought that was very, that excited my imagination thinking about things that were from long ago.

Joyce’s comments here show a connection between the physical qualities of the artifacts she held and a feeling of excitement associated with the exoticism of the past. She came in contact with projectile points and the “Indian paint pots” at a young age but still recalled the exhilaration she felt when handling them. Many of the archaeologists I interviewed recounted the joy of coming in contact and working with archaeological materials for the first time. The hands-on work satisfied their curiosity about objects and invited them into a scientific discipline that is both action and object oriented.

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Rose, an archaeologist who has worked in both CRM and academic careers, recalls that her earliest encounter with archaeological materials and with professional archaeologists was in a museum setting. There she was allowed the opportunity to work on sorting and typing bones from an archaeological site. She met “real” archaeologists with stories from the field, which fueled her desire to advance her education and pursue archaeology as a career.

Rose: …I walked in and told [the archaeologist working there] I wanted to volunteer Thursday afternoons, she handed me a copy of Baby’s book, which is Human Osteology, and showed me where all the bones were from [a site] and said, ‘I want you to identify and reconstruct those.’…it was wonderful, it was just great to have someone sort of just say, ‘go ahead and do it,’ you know? ‘Have fun with it, enjoy it,’ and…[the director] would always tell me all kinds of stories about archaeology and of course [other archaeologists] were there so I got to know a lot of people in archaeology and that's when I decided to go on, to go into graduate school.

The work of reconstructing bones from a site gave Rose the opportunity to come in contact with individuals who would hone her intellectual curiosity, reshaping the idealized Hollywood version of archaeology into something more realistic but equally exciting. Her hands-on learning experience extended from the technical work of skeletal reconstruction to learning about professional archaeology as a career.

Scott, a CRM archaeologist, became interested in the archaeological landscape as a young boy growing up in rural Ohio. As noted in the previous section, Scott lived on a farm in an archaeologically rich area of the state, a setting which afforded him plenty of encounters with archaeological materials.

Scott: My dad did [pick up archaeological materials] and then I would go see those things and wonder what they were. So, I’ve always been asking questions what is this stuff? Int: So, did he actively collect things or did you just…?

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Scott: Probably more passively, just accidentally stumbled across them and you could see it off the tractor or walking around.

His upbringing on the farm and frequent encounters with actual archaeological materials led him to become interested in the tangible aspects of history and prehistory. Archaeology was in the landscape, and it was something that could be done rather than simply read about. As a result, he found himself drawn to later schooling with an experiential learning component. His early environment made contact with archaeological objects quite normal and instilled in him a preference for outdoor, hands-on work.

Intellectual Curiosity

The final component of the general habitus of my interview subjects that I will examine here is that they held a diversity of interests or were intellectually curious about a variety of subjects. Many interviewees noted that they had considered several different careers before settling on archaeology, or that they had been interested in a completely different career track before learning that archaeology was a viable profession, but this is not what I mean by intellectual curiosity. Intellectual curiosity here is a desire to develop a diverse range of academic interests. Interview subjects noted that one of the appeals of archaeology was that it allowed them to merge many of their interests into one academic pursuit. Carl, an academic archaeologist working in a museum, remembers exploring a range of interests before settling on archaeology; he wanted to take classes in a number of subjects before deciding on a major as an undergraduate.

Carl: I don’t ever remember having any thoughts about archeology in high school. In fact, I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do. So when I was, I didn’t declare a major as a freshman because I wanted to sort of explore what’s there, so I took intro courses in a number of things. It wasn’t until I think probably mid-way through my freshman year in college that I realized that archeology was something I wanted to do.

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While his initial trajectory in college might be interpreted as uncertainty, I note that he states he purposely did not declare a major so that he could explore several subjects. He brought the spirit of exploration and discovery into his search for a college major, then settled on a major with an element of exploration and discovery attached to it.

Victoria and Kyle, both academic archaeologists, point out that they discovered that archaeology was a venue in which they could combine many interests. In fact, archaeology seemed to be a discipline that welcomed outside knowledge, as this knowledge could augment archaeological research.

Victoria: I mean I’ve always loved archeology, but I have a lot of interests also. So, I was drawn to the fact that when I came for a campus tour of this college, students who were interested in English also knew something about civics and the students seemed very well rounded. Looking back that makes sense because I have a lot of interests within, I think archeology actually pulls many threads together as a discipline that connects really the arts and humanities and the sciences.

Kyle: Well, I had always been interested in history and studying the past and also in some other sciences, particularly like the earth sciences, geology and things like that. Somewhere I guess later in high school I was thinking about career tracks and thinking about those interests and to me they seemed to combine well in something like archeology or maybe paleontology.

Rose, an academic archaeologist, recalls coming into archaeology from an art history background. She realized that archaeology and cultural anthropology could be used to understand the non-western art she wanted to study.

Rose: I decided to become an artist, went to art school as an undergrad, but I minored in anthropology because I found that my interests, I was really drawn more to the so-called tribal arts, so this was "art" that was produced by people who don't have a western concept of art, don't have a western market for art, they used what we call their art in their everyday

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life…so I actually, I wanted to know more about the people who made these objects because I was so intrigued with the objects. That's how I got into anthropology, and somewhere along the line I took that leap into archaeology.

My interview subjects viewed archaeology as a discipline ideal for people interested in a number of topics relating to history or the sciences, a discipline where diverse interests could be merged in a meaningful way toward scientific study. Diversity of interests shows a habitus inclined to intellectual curiosity and creative use of knowledge, which fit well with archaeology as an academic discipline.

Summary

In this chapter I examined the general habitus that led people to the profession of archaeology. I note that habitus is reshaped over time as new cultural structures are introduced into an individual’s life (e.g. school, clubs, friends). Habitus is successfully transformed when the new cultural structures share features of the primary habitus. As Bourdieu and Passeron note, “the habitus acquired within the family forms the basis of the reception and assimilation of the classroom message,” which in turn “conditions the level of reception and degree of assimilation of the messages produced and diffused by the culture industry,” (2000:44). The interview subjects, in sharing recollections about their initial interest in archaeology, illustrate the ways they were oriented toward the profession. Many developed a sense of fascination with the past and/or with exotic places as children or young adults. They felt drawn to the romance of discovery and the adventure of travel, their perceptions of archaeology often shaped by images of the archaeologist in popular media. Some of my interview subjects lived in areas which were nearby actual archaeological features or in places where archaeological materials could be commonly found. Others had the opportunity to travel and even do fieldwork, thus putting themselves into contact with archaeological materials. Interview subjects indicate they had a

107 preference for hands-on learning as opposed to classroom or passive learning; many also note a childhood love of the outdoors. Finally, subjects had an intellectual curiosity not only about archaeology but about a range of other topics as well, including history, geology, and art. Within archaeology they felt they could pursue their other academic interests as well.

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CHAPTER 6

TODAY’S ARCHAEOLOGIST:

THE SPECIFIC HABITUS OF THE PROFESSIONAL

Int: …when did you feel like a real archaeologist? Eugene: …I was in my first year of Ph.D. work…I just felt that I was looking at archaeology, I was looking really at the past from a professional standpoint, you know? That I knew how to evaluate things as a professional, I—again, certainly didn't know everything—but just the way I looked at things was different, that's all I can say…sort of a light went on and yeah, I can't say it much better than that…I think there is such a thing as a professional sensibility, and it guides how you, you know, look at all these things that we deal with and how you try to make sense out of them.

Here, one of my interview subjects describes feeling like a “real” archaeologist for the first time. Eugene, an academic archaeologist, tells us here that becoming a professional archaeologist was a shift in his mindset, in the way that he was able to evaluate and understand the past through the material record. The mindset that Eugene describes is what I explore in this chapter as I analyze how my interview subjects identify themselves as archaeologists, and how that identity affects archaeological practice. Professional archaeology is the confluence of a set of technical skills put into practice and an orientation to the world honed by personal history and educational experience. Calling to mind Bourdieu and his concepts of socialization, I find that the way archaeologists view themselves, how they act and react in professional settings, and their general outlook on the world (not just archaeology) culminates to create a habitus specific to their profession. The specific habitus both reinforces the identity of the archaeologist and creates the very thing they study, the archaeological record, as they use it to interpret the material record

109 through their experienced, scholarly lens. Through archaeological practice, natural geological features are separated from objects and features created through human activity. The application of knowledge, judgement, and analysis on the part of the archaeologist attributes meaning to the material record, creating a picture of the human past. The cultural field thus creates the archaeological record, which in turn creates knowledge of human prehistory or history.

Through the interviews with archaeologists working in educational, CRM, and museum settings, I developed an understanding of a habitus specific to the archaeological professional.

General habitus is formed early in life and is transformed through entry into new environments and social structures (Bourdieu 2000:164). Conceptualizing professional identity as a specific habitus was the approach used by Desmond (2006; 2007) in his ethnographic work on wildland firefighters. He built an understanding of wildland firefighting as a profession by “focusing on how firefighters dispositions and skills acquired from their rural, masculine, and working class upbringing,” worked within the framework of the physical and mental requirements of the job

(Desmond 2006:391). As subjects discussed their career paths, they revealed behaviors and ways of being consistent with their idea of the archaeological identity and which meshed with their general habitus.

During the interviews I asked the professional archaeologists a series of questions related to their training and practice as archaeologists. Although my subjects revealed important aspects of their lives as professionals throughout the interviews, the answers to four questions generated a lot of discussion on professionalization:

1) When did you first feel like a “real” archaeologist? 2) How do you think archaeology is best learned? 3) What skills do you think are imperative to being an archaeologist? 4) Do you think people are professionalized adequately into the profession?

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The answers to these questions led to conceptual categories of the norms and skills needed in professional archaeology (see Table 7 in Chapter 4). At first, it seemed that my interview subjects enumerated an unending list of characteristics, skills, and competencies required for archaeological practice. As I looked through the data I realized that four main concepts formed the foundation for all the norms the professional archaeologists had delineated. What emerged was a habitus specific to the practice of professional archaeology. For archaeologists, learning is an active, ongoing process that requires interaction with the material environment.

Archaeologists are versatile, experiential learners who are unflappable in difficult environmental conditions and who persevere through stretches of tedious fieldwork or lab hours. In this section, I will look at each of these traits in turn: adaptability, commitment, learning by doing, and stoicism. Table 9 shows how many of the total interview subjects discussed the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist. The numbers are quite stark: interviews with over 90% of my interview subjects revealed that adaptability (36 out of 39 subjects), commitment (36 out of 39), and learning by doing (35 out of 39) were important traits of the professional archaeologist, and 69% (27 out of 39) in some way discussed the importance of stoicism.

Table 9: Number of interview subjects who discussed elements of specific habitus.

Total Specific Habitus CRM Academic/Museum (out of 39)

Adaptability 16 20 36

Commitment 16 20 36 Learning by Doing 17 18 35

Stoicism 16 11 27

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Adaptability

The first important characteristic that the interviewees stressed was adaptability, or the ability to adjust physically and mentally to new situations as needed. My subjects identified adaptability as a key attribute of their archaeological identity and discussed the importance of developing a diverse range of skills and interests in a professional setting. The environments in which archaeology is conducted are diverse in climate, vegetation, and terrain. Weather, vegetation, or soil conditions can change on individual sites from day to day, week to week, or field season to field season. Perhaps most importantly, each archaeological site is unique in its setting and in the data it can yield. An archaeologist must be able to adapt her methods, research questions, and data collection strategies to each site depending on its setting. An archaeologist must also be able to process artifacts, analyze data, and report findings, all of which require the development of skills beyond the practice of fieldwork. My subjects discussed the ways that adaptability was necessary for conducting archaeological work, noting their own experiences in education or their careers. They also explained that experiencing a range of fieldwork and/or data analysis methods was important for students interested in a career in archaeology. Versatility in abilities and knowledge base was viewed as an essential part of being an archaeologist, so that one would be able to adapt to different fieldwork conditions and work environments.

Carl, an archaeologist working in a museum setting, sums up the overall view of the archaeologist as a scientific generalist, able to bring useful skills into any situation. He notes that archaeologists should know something about a diverse range of subjects, but they should also develop skills that will make them useful in any context, such as working with computer graphics or statistics.

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Carl: …they should become good at like, design graphics, statistics, photography. Those are the things that you are going to have to do or know something about every day, because I think archeologists are sort of put in a position where they have to know a little bit about everything but not a whole lot about one thing. It’s like, we’re really tasked to understand a whole bunch of things…

Likewise, Sean and Eugene, also working in university settings, note the importance of developing a broad base of skills from which to draw. There is a sense here that generalization in skill and in knowledge serves the archaeologist well, as this can make one a valuable worker in many different situations.

Sean: …I think they need to have a broad array of information about archaeology widely, you know, world prehistory as well as their sort of specific geographic regions of interest, you know, so understanding of the archaeological record in toto and also specifically in specific areas so particular data is always going to be important, they need that in order to provide the appropriate context for understanding things.

Eugene: Everybody's got to have a field school. A real field school, not like being paid by some CRM firm to be a shovel bum3 for X numbers of dollars to dig square holes in the ground, but a field school where they get a broad, as broad an experience as possible in terms of how to deal with as many kind of tactical situations as they can...

Sean indicates that archaeologists have to understand the context of the whole archaeological record, not just one time period or geographic region, to understand where and how their own work fits into the larger picture of human history. Eugene and Carl suggest that adaptability is practical; for Eugene being able to adapt to different fieldwork conditions is an essential aspect to research strategy, while Carl explains that professional archaeologists are called upon to use skills outside of archaeology in their day-to-day work.

3 A “shovel bum” is a seasonal or part-time itinerant archaeological field technician. 113

Virginia, a CRM archaeologist, stresses the important of adaptability in young people coming into archaeology. In the quote below, her conceptualization of the duties of an archaeologist, particularly a CRM archaeologist, move fluidly from fieldwork to office work, showing that archaeologists are expected be competent in both arenas.

Virginia: So they need to know obviously need to know how to do field work, in a variety of settings and geographic areas if possible, you know, if they've had that opportunity. They need to be able to research, they absolutely need to be able to write. They need to be able to write without needing to be edited four times.

The archaeologist she describes is a person with blue collar manual labor skills, white collar office skills, and academic research competence. She further notes that for CRM work specifically, individuals need to cultivate business skills outside archaeology in order to negotiate the economic environment in which CRM firms must operate.

Virginia: If you're going to stay in the industry then you have to have a whole lot of business education that none of us get, and so you have to understand how…gosh there's so much. There's marketing, they need to at least a rudimentary understanding of marketing. HR is a huge black hole for most of us…finance beyond just the budget for your project, how does a corporation come up with a budget, what all is included. Who creates the different parts of the budget, who is responsible for watching the budget and maintaining the budget throughout the year, all those kinds of things.

Virginia stresses that people coming into archaeology need to develop skills that can be applied in a practical work environment, not just technical skills associated with archaeological fieldwork. Many archaeologists working in CRM are working as businesses which provide a service to a client. As such, Virginia and other CRM archaeologists have learned that one must not only be an expert in archaeology, one must become savvy in business practices as well.

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Kenneth, an archaeologist for a CRM firm, notes that adaptability is actually an important strategy for finding work and staying employed. Even with their varied skill set, and archaeologist hired in CRM is generally expected to do one thing: conduct archaeology. The archaeologist’s employment status could become vulnerable if a CRM firm’s clients do not require archaeological work for their projects or start designing projects that avoid archaeologically sensitive areas. Kenneth suggests that cultivating skills beyond, but still related to, archaeological work is a smart way to remain relevant to an employer.

Kenneth: If you are just an archaeologist when the archaeological money dries up you’re just an archaeologist, you are pretty expendable. But if you can pick up different skills, wetlands, ecology, factories that sort of thing, then you can, I work for the environmental, I can go up there and be a little flexible…I would recommend anybody that can, does that. The archaeologists should get some of that ecological work in, because they run hand-in-hand.

Kenneth provides an example of the benefits to the professional archaeologist of developing and maintaining interests that in some ways coincide with archaeology. Kenneth understands that archaeology is just one part of the environmental assessment that must be done to comply with federal laws. A project for which archaeology is being done will probably also require other environmental assessments such as ecological survey. A person who can do both archaeological and ecological survey is more flexible and can be a more valuable employee for a firm doing

(and many do) both archaeological and other environmental assessment work.

An archaeologist must be versatile within his own discipline as well. He must be familiar with a variety of fieldwork methods and implement them as necessary and appropriate.

Christopher, a CRM archaeologist, explains that part of the job of the archaeologist is to be the expert that can choose and execute the most efficient archaeological method:

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Christopher: I think it’s important to be aware of the many ways of doing fieldwork and choosing the appropriate [method]. I don’t think there is a solution that gets all of it sometimes. There are always going to be times where a surface collection is probably going to give you just as much information as a geophysical survey…I think our best bet is to accept that there are multiple ways to conduct fieldwork and to be responsible and choose the appropriate one...

The distinction between a surface collection and a geophysical survey is an interesting one. Both methods can cover a large area of ground in a relatively short amount of time, but a geophysical survey may be a more expensive proposition. Geophysical survey is a non-invasive technique which can be used to identify subsurface archaeological features. It requires hiring a consultant with specialized skills and the proper (extremely expensive) equipment. According to

Christopher, an archaeologist should be able to recognize instances where pedestrian survey could yield as much useful information as a geophysical survey, a decision-making skill which requires full knowledge of multiple archaeological methods in various environments.

Understanding multiple archaeological methods and variations on those methods is also important because requirements for archaeological work, particularly in CRM, can change depending on location. For example, standards for fieldwork change from state to state. In West

Virginia, for Phase I pedestrian survey (the most exploratory and least intensive type of field testing) should be conducted in areas with 75% ground visibility or more. Shovel test units or probes should be a minimum of 50 by 50 centimeters (i.e. the units are square) and be dug 10 centimeters into culturally sterile subsoil (WVSHPO:7-8). In Kentucky 50% ground visibility is considered adequate for pedestrian survey, and shovel test probes should be 30 centimeters in diameter (i.e. the units are circular) and dug just to culturally sterile subsoil (KSHPO 2006:21).

Frank, a field technician who moves from state to state working on archaeological projects, notes that he has to adjust his methods according to the location of the project.

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Frank: Well I find that when I go, I've had this when I go from state to state I'm just not certain how I'm supposed to be doing things cause I know how the survey changes. How many meters, how big the hole has to be, what counts as a site or an isolated find changes from state to state.

He has to be able to adjust his work style to meet the standards of the state in which he is working. Thus, he not only needs to know multiple archaeological methods, he also needs to know multiple variations of each archaeological method.

In the previous chapter I noted that interview subjects showed an inclination toward learning about and/or pursuing diverse interests in their youth, particularly in school. Their intellectual curiosity serves them well as professional archaeologists, as they are expected to have a broad base of knowledge from which to draw. They should know about the past and present conditions of different regions of the world and be able to correctly determine what archaeological field methods should be used in which environmental settings. Many of the archaeologists I interviewed spoke of the importance of developing skills outside archaeology, such as photography, mapping, working with computers, and marketing. As an element of specific habitus, adaptability seems to develop out of the desire to learn about and pursue diverse interests. The above shows that having diverse interests eventually translates into methodological and technical versatility, which is an advantage for professional archaeologists.

Adaptability is not only encouraged, it is necessary for maintaining professional authority, as the ability to assess and choose wisely from a wide range of field methods is part of an archaeologist’s expertise. Learning skills outside of archaeology such as ecological surveying can also make an archaeologist a desirable employee, which is important because archaeologists work within institutions (government, academic, business) dependent on the ebb and flow of economic forces. If there is a period where there are fewer project requiring archaeological

117 clearance, then developing skills outside the profession may better position an archaeologist to maintain continued employment.

Commitment

The second feature of the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist is commitment. Hard work can be said to be a key component to any profession, but in archaeology the quality of commitment serves two purposes. The first is that archaeology is a profession which is defined by its rare finds, so archaeologists must be able to persist in their work even in the face of finding little or nothing of note in the archaeological record. In fact, one must understand that finding nothing, though less exciting, is as important as finding something. The archaeologist sees negative spaces as part of the bigger picture of the archaeological record, asking why the material record is patterned in specific ways and why artifacts are found in some places but not in others. Commitment, then, means dedication to understanding the way that one’s own work, whether one finds artifacts or not, contributes to the overall understanding of past human activity. The second reason that commitment is important is that getting all the way through an advanced degree in archaeology and finding a full-time job as an archaeologist is an arduous task. To succeed in becoming a professional archaeologist, then, requires diligence and tenacity in the face of a sparse job market. Patrick, a CRM archaeologist, sums it up well in the advice he gives to young people interested in pursuing archaeology.

Patrick: so my advice to students is focus. You have to be committed to this. This is a profession, this is a lifelong dedication. If you are not dedicated to do this, I think you are going to get bored or disenchanted or something is going to happen along the way. There’s all sorts of challenges in life, personal things and professional things. I mean you really need to be dedicated to do this. So that’s my advice.

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He tells students that being a professional in archaeology is more than having a job, it’s a

“lifelong dedication” which will require commitment that can overcome boredom and disenchantment.

Though it may be portrayed as fast-paced and adventurous in popular media, the reality is that significant archaeological finds are rare. My subjects were quick to note that archaeology is a lot of hard work with small moments of discovery. Most archaeologists spend the majority of their time in the field noting null findings or sites that are ultimately not considered significant4 to either the CRM or the academic archaeologist. One of the characteristics that can make a find significant is rarity, thus archaeologists have to become comfortable with the fact that they will much more often find nothing than they will finding something, and only a small percentage of what they find will be significant. They must learn to appreciate that smaller finds contribute to painting the wider canvas of the historical record, and that null findings can be just as important as rare artifacts or large features. The professional archaeologist should see most or all of their time as furthering the larger goal of understanding the human past through researching the material record. Commitment to the profession and its ideals allows archaeologists to persevere in the face of the monotony and tedium of the day-to-day tasks associated with their work.

Charles, a CRM archaeologist, explains that many young people coming into archaeology are still somewhat unprepared for the kind of work that typifies archaeology. He also explains that in the CRM world, null findings may seem boring to the archaeologist but they are looked upon very favorably by clients. Finding archaeological remains that could delay a construction or development project is the last thing a client wants. In CRM, development projects dictate when, where, and the amount of work that archaeologists do. Said projects may be designed to

4 I will remind the reader that significance has a specific meaning in terms of compliance with federal laws—please refer to the glossary provided in Appendix A. 119 reduce the chances of coming across archaeological remains, thus the very mechanism that drives archaeological work also operates to minimize archaeological work.

Charles: There are very few people that come out fresh with a BA, and walk into their first CRM job and have any clue what they are going to do…In reality, most of the day you are going to find nothing. So it’s, be prepared for that. That is the biggest thing that you have to be prepared for, day after day of finding nothing. We actually want to find nothing for our clients. That’s what they want.

In archaeology, Charles notes, days of fieldwork where few or no artifacts or features are found is completely normal. Young people coming into the field can find this orientation toward null findings jarring, he finds, because they haven’t learned that negative findings are expected and important.

Charles: We love finding stuff. So, we are trying to find stuff but mostly we don’t find stuff. I think that [young people] are unprepared for not finding things, and they don’t have an appreciation, most of them don’t have an appreciation of the bigger research design picture. That could be because they are just not informed, or they don’t have the skills that they want. They weren’t prepared to think in that way.

Here again we see the importance of being able to see data in a broader sense, beyond one’s own fieldwork. The archaeological record is comprised of both positive and negative spaces, and the archaeological researcher will most certainly come across both in his work.

Helen, a CRM archaeologist working for a government institution, echoes some of

Charles’s sentiments.

Helen: When you get into doing CRM obviously you are much more stuck with what you get and trying to learn what you can from corridor surveys and from housing developments, and yeah, I’m in this field and there’s nothing here, but what can we learn from that?...Well, [moving from a graduate program to a professional work environment] gave me a new perspective on learning things about the lesser known and learning things

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about the areas where there…isn’t anything and how important that is for the body of archeological data.

She further notes that archaeologists have to be able to put up with day-to-day work which may seem boring and/or difficult. She indicates that possessing a strong work ethic and a passion for archaeology were two important traits for archaeologists.

Helen: I think a strong work ethic comes with it anyway because it’s not an easy job no matter what you do. That, and the ability to do tedious things over and over and over…We don’t make a lot of money. It can be very tedious and the fieldwork can suck. I mean the reports can get really boring and repetitive. So, yeah I guess that’s some of the things you would need to have. You really need to be passionate, you need to have that work ethic and just…enjoy the things that go along with it.

Passion for the work can transcend the repetitive boredom of everyday practice. Helen’s discussion on passion for archaeology and work ethic takes apart and explains the important elements of commitment as part of the specific habitus of the archaeologist. Much archaeological work is can become task oriented, which can remove the initial mystery and allure associated with the profession. Passion for archaeology formed early in many interview subjects, who were captivated by the romance of discovery and fascinated by exploration of the past. They had been influenced by culturally constructed images of the archaeologist found in popular media, such as movies or television shows. Their intellectual curiosity had to be honed through education as they pursued archaeology and further refined as they entered into the profession. The ability to view their work in archaeology as one small part of a larger picture of the human past creates a sense of commitment to the profession which is built on their initial passion for the discipline.

Another CRM archaeologist, Janet, also stresses the importance of passion and the ability to think creatively.

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Janet: …you have to be creative and be logical. You have to have use left and right brain. You have to kind of balance all of these things, and be interested in the world around you and be passionate about what you do, because you’re not going to meet a lot of money, and there’s a lot of shitty stuff that happens to you.

Here is an interesting intersection of the professional identity formed by my subjects and the sociological literature on professions. Note that both Helen and Janet tell us that archaeologists generally do not make a lot of money, and that maintaining intellectual interest in and dedication to archaeological work is crucial for staying in the profession. Archaeology is not a high-paying profession when compared with professions such as law or medicine, and CRM archaeologists are more likely to work for smaller companies that are more likely to be affected by economic factors than archaeologists working in academic settings. The archaeologist is intrinsically motivated to stay in her profession because of her commitment to the discipline, not because of extrinsic monetary motivation. In early sociological literature on professions (mostly pre-

1960s), one defining characteristic of a profession is that it is skilled practice in the service of the wider community, unmotivated by personal gain (Greenwood 1957:15; MacIver 1955:51;

Parsons 1939:56). My interview subjects clearly internalize the need to put and ideal of commitment above personal gain.

Archaeologists have to be committed to their profession because well-paying, full-time jobs can be difficult to obtain. Some individuals spend most of their working career as itinerant workers or “shovel bums,” which, though more plentiful, are not stable job prospects. The work is seasonal, project-driven, and often physically demanding. Remaining a part-time employee in such a job market requires commitment to a lifestyle that supports this kind of employment, one that involves high mobility, physical fitness, and austere living habits. Kathleen, a seasonal field technician working for a CRM company explains that many people saw shovel bumming as a

122 stepping stone to more stable and less physically demanding employment. Likewise, Frank, also a field technician, notes that people sometimes dropped out of archaeology because of the hard labor associated with being a field technician, the uncertainty of the job market, and the fact that even full-time supervisory positions could be low-paying.

Kathleen: …no one wants to be on the bottom rung of the shovel bum experience for the rest of their lives, but moving up to maybe a crew chief or a supervisor or project manager—it’s still part of the shovel bum culture, but it’s not as physically demanding. Because obviously you can’t hike up the mountain and then dig a hole your entire life, and do that anywhere between 30 and 45 times a day. Your body is just going to give out eventually. As you get older people definitely want to move onto something that’s a little less physically demanding I think…All of us talk about going the master’s route and those who already have a master’s and this is their first season in the field want to get the experience and move up to crew chief and project supervisor, but it’s just getting the experience.

Frank: …it varies from person to person. Some really do, they really enjoy it. Others kind of enjoy it and they’re just kind of doing it as a job right now but maybe looking to do something else in the future because they realize it might not be profitable for them in the future. If they want to have a better life or occupation eventually down the road—I think that's one of the things that comes along with being an archaeologist: in those kind of positions you're not paid overly well.

Kathleen indicates that in order to advance to the next levels of employment, the crew chief or project supervisor, one has to put in time in the field and in the classroom. Moving up requires another level of commitment to the profession: the time to gain enough experience and the time and money to gain the master’s or doctoral degree. Without the degree, it is impossible for a field technician to advance in the employment hierarchy. Even if these goals are achieved, commitment to the profession is still necessary because even the supervisory positions are not well-paying.

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Jeremy’s story perhaps exemplifies the value of commitment better than any other archaeologist I interviewed. He began by working in two part-time jobs: teaching archaeology at one university and working in an archaeology lab at another university. Eventually he became full-time at the lab but continued to teach part-time to build up his classroom experience. During this period he began applying for tenure-track academic positions, a process which took him through five years of applications and interviews.

Jeremy: I think it was just, the market was really tough. I interviewed in quite a few—probably between five and ten interviews, which was pretty good, to get that number. I seemed pretty competitive in the interviews, but I always say the academic tenure-track position is like winning the lottery—the odds, you know. So I consider myself really really fortunate that I was able to get one.

There is no question that Jeremy was committed to finding full-time employment in an academic setting, and his commitment was put to the test. His description of landing a tenure-track archaeology position as “winning the lottery” may give an accurate sense of the scarcity of such jobs, but his “winning” had little to do with luck. Rather, his consistent application for jobs, his strategy of publishing his work in peer-reviewed journals, and his refusal to give up finally yielded the result he desired. His “prize” was entry into the highest level of pedagogic authority for the profession of archaeology, the professor at an academic institution. His commitment thus allows him to become a vehicle for the replication of the specific habitus of the archaeologist as he teaches introduces students into the profession.

Here I have analyzed the components of commitment that were important to my interview subjects and the unique ways that they incorporated commitment into their professional archaeological identities. A professional is someone who does not do their work simply because it pays or only when it is exciting. A strong work ethic is stressed in

124 archaeology, as an archaeologist has to be able to continue on when fieldwork or report writing becomes difficult or tedious. Any practicing professional must have a dedication to their subject which overrides the monotony or boredom of task repetition. For archaeologists, commitment seems to have a foundation in a particular element of their general habitus, captivated interest with discovery/the past. The subjects had maintained their fascination with the past from childhood or young adulthood and this was translated into an intellectual curiosity which fueled their professional lives. Archaeologists must remain dedicated to archaeology even when they are not finding artifacts or features in the landscapes they explore. An important way they maintain their dedication in the face of finding nothing is by viewing negative findings as part of a the bigger picture of the archaeological record as a whole. When an archaeologist finds nothing, she still has something to contribute to the overall discipline; finding nothing is not a professional failure, it is normal, expected, and useful. Even in moments of tedium, my subjects understood the importance of preserving an underlying sense of wonder. Perhaps George, a

CRM archaeologist, sums it up best.

Int: …was that notion of the romance of archeology taken away from you at any point? George: It’s not taken away it’s always there. It’s just that the day-to-day operations, you are not always delving into mysteries and in solving problems. You are doing a lot of routine kind of stuff. You are cataloging stuff, writing letters, answering letters. Regardless of, if you are in CRM or in academia you need to have other things that you have to do that supports all of it. But it’s always that spirit of adventure, and the other thing about it is if you are in the science fiction then yeah it’s a way of time travel.

At the professional level, the archaeologist is committed to the development of archaeological research and understands the value of all elements of her work. The “spirit of adventure” underlies professional practice and continues to drive the intellectual curiosity of my subjects.

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Learning By Doing

The third characteristic of the archaeological habitus is the ability to learn by doing.

Many of the archaeologists I interviewed felt archaeology must be learned physically, in the field. They were clear on the point that while you can learn important aspects of archaeology in the classroom such as theoretical and methodological perspectives, archaeology is not something that is truly understood until it is practiced through fieldwork. Archaeology is not just an academic discipline, it is an activity. Both John, a CRM archaeologist, and Carl, a museum archaeologist, note here that while classroom and textbook learning is important, learning in the field is more important.

John: I think 75% of it is in the field. You can only read so much. What I think’s real helpful is if you read it and then apply it hands-on in the field, I think that would be what works better. So, like all these journals and stuff that we read all the time, we are reading other people’s fieldwork and stuff like that. But I am able to go out sometime soon after reading that and do field work, so then it will dawn on me when I am out in the field, oh, you know, so and so did something similar to this, and they approached it this way. Let’s see how that works for me. So yeah, I think they should go hand in hand. They should definitely be going together. But I’m more of a, I learn more hands-on than I do out of a textbook. So, that’s why I say to me, 75% of it should be fieldwork, because I learn better hands-on than I do reading a book. I’ll read a book and I ask, did I really learn how to do that?

Carl: Fieldwork is essentially common sense. It’s understanding what needs to be done next and how to do it with and what’s the easiest way to do it. You learn that through experience in doing it and being taught by others. But also of course we have to be able to interpret the soil—abilities that essentially cannot be taught to any degree, you have to learn by actually doing it.

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Both these archaeologists give a sense that learning by doing can be trusted more than learning in a classroom. These archaeologists indicate that hands-on learning brings an added quality of physical understanding. George, a CRM archaeologist, and Eugene, an academic archaeologist, consider hands-on learning to be essential to archaeological practice.

George: Well archeology is all about doing. So in the field, in the lab, you have to have a hands-on experience. You can’t do it without it.

Eugene: I also think you do have to have some practical experience and you know…I don’t think anybody is going to go on to become a professional archaeologist unless they like fieldwork because it’s a very different kind of thing. I think for most of us, you know, we think we want to do archaeology and then we do some fieldwork and we like it—it really kind of sets the hook and pulls you in.

Experiential learning follows from the general inclination toward hands-on learning that the archaeologists had as children or young adults. Their general habitus prepared them for the bodily hexis of archaeological work in which “the properties and movements of the body are socially qualified,” (Bourdieu 1990:72). Archaeologists are “hooked” once they do fieldwork because it feels like a natural progression of their orientation toward hands-on learning and physical, outdoor work.

Archaeology, as described by my interview subjects, is a wonderful example of the way that the body relates to habitus. As Bourdieu tells us, “[w]hat is ‘learned by body’ is not something that one has, like knowledge that can be brandished, but something that one is,”

(1990:73). One CRM archaeologist, Patrick, explains that it is important for archaeologists to get out of the classroom not just to learn to do fieldwork, but to learn to really be archaeologists.

Patrick: …when you are in school…don’t just stay in the freaking classroom, get out and get your fingernails dirty and your jeans dirty. Go to the bar and drink. I think it really, the experience is the most important part in archeology…

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Getting out into the field, getting dirty, drinking with one’s comrades: these are important elements of archaeological identity in Patrick’s mind, and they are things that cannot be done within the confines of a classroom. He speaks here not of learning archaeological practice, but of being an archaeologist.

Kathleen, a seasonal field technician, offers perhaps the best analogy for the combination of the physical and intellectual understanding that an archaeologist must develop. When asked how archaeology is best learned, she explains that field experience was crucial, but also discusses the importance of using theoretical knowledge to direct physical learning.

Kathleen: …doing archeology without a good rational basis and understanding of what’s going on in your own head is really irresponsible I think….when I was taking our theory classes a lot of people were complaining, “theory is so boring why do we do it? This is hard why do we need to learn it? We’re never going to need it again?” But I think it’s important to know what’s going on in your own head, what the framework is that you are looking at information with. It’s similar I guess to, this is going to sound weird but I swear I’m going somewhere with it, it’s similar to a marching band. Our marching band director in high school said we have to be half an athlete and half a musician. Like the top half is the musician, we have to be a perfect musician, but we also have to be an equally balanced athlete. We have to, with archeology we have to have a physical understanding of what’s going on in the dirt balanced with our intellectual understanding of what’s going on.

Hands-on learning also builds off of the sense of wonder about the past that many archaeologists felt as children or young adults. Tactile interaction with archaeological materials serves as an extension of some of the formative experiences they had when they first developed an interest in archaeology. Joyce, an academic archaeologist, talks about the impact that handling archaeological material had on her initiation into the profession.

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Joyce: I mean my most vivid memory of first taking archeology courses was being able to handle stuff and know that it was real. It blew my mind, I loved it. Whether it was the art or technology or the antiquity of it, the beauty of it, being able to touch these things in the lab was thrilling.

June, a CRM archaeologist, describes how objects create a sense of connection to the peoples of the past, and Patricia, an academic archaeologist, explains that she choose archaeology as a profession because she felt the physical act of finding artifacts brought her closer to past peoples.

June: I love that, man I love…handling the artifacts…there’s nothing that is more connecting than picking up a bunch of stuff that somebody used a super long time ago and understanding how they lived and all of that.

Patricia: …I liked that in archaeology you contacted the past because you actually got to be in the places where the past took place and see the places they saw, so there was more sensory engagement with the past.

The objects and the fieldwork are a source of excitement and interest for the archaeologists.

Interestingly, the hands-on process of artifact recovery and assessment is how archaeologists, through their professional expertise, transform objects into pieces of the archaeological record.

Archaeologists thus create the very thing that holds fascination for them as they produce archaeological data. Hands-on practice is essential in the maintenance of professional expertise as well as formation of professional identity.

The individuals I interviewed indicated that in their youth they had a preference for hands-on learning, physical interaction with the outdoor environment, and a fascination with archaeological objects and places. All of these elements of general habitus form a foundation for the experiential learning necessary in archaeological practice. Creating the archaeological record requires physical contact with the material record, and contact with the material record in turn is an important aspect of the identity of the archaeologist. My subjects describe archaeology as a learned activity and a way of being as much as it is an academic discipline. Experience in the

129 field allows the archaeologist to build a repertoire of bodily knowledge indispensable to the performance of archaeological work. The importance of the body in archaeological practice reminds us that habitus “is rooted in a posture, a way of bearing the body (a hexis)…constantly changing (within limits), in a twofold relationship, structured and structuring, to the environment,” (Bourdieu 2000:144). The archaeologist physically and mentally creates the archaeological record by discovering and attributing meaning to objects and features discovered in the landscape. At the same time, the archaeologist’s professional sense of self is created by interaction with the material record, as the act of conducting fieldwork builds their body of expert knowledge and experience.

Stoicism

The final aspect of archaeological habitus that emerged from my data was stoicism. As my interview subjects have illustrated, there is certainly a physical component to archaeological work, in fact, the process of doing archaeological work is essential for creating the archaeological record and for maintaining archaeological identity. In this section, I examine the ways that archaeologists frame the physical labor of fieldwork. As I interviewed the professional archaeologists, I noticed that they told me two separate stories about archaeological work. One was the way that hands-on learning connected them to the past and made them more knowledgeable, experienced professionals. The other was a story about the conditions of archaeological work: difficult, strenuous, physically demanding, and uncomfortable. The archaeologist has to be someone who can conduct and even enjoy research in unpleasant environments. Physical fitness, stamina, and stoicism are often required for archaeological fieldwork.

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Most archaeologists (including myself) have their own tales of the difficult field conditions they have had to endure. Walter, an academic archaeologist, described the conditions of a field school he runs for students in a tropical environment.

Walter: …many of [the students], it's their first archaeological experience, their first prehistoric experience and they really find out if they're going to like it or not. It might sound nice to go to [a tropical climate]…when it's zero around here but you get down there and it's eighty degrees every day and the sun is relentless…and you’ve got mosquitos when you’re working and there's scorpions and it’s just, you're riding in the back of the truck in the sun…and we have poison wood, it’s sumac…the ones that go back seven or eight times…you know they’re the serious ones…they find out real fast, the serious ones, they know it's no big deal.

Kathleen describes the difficult conditions that she, as a field technician, deals with on a regular basis. She brings up the point that archaeological work can take place in a physically demanding environment and that the time demands it places on a person can also become exhausting. In particular, archaeological work can be dependent on the weather, prompting long field days during stretches of decent weather to ensure that fieldwork can be completed.

Kathleen: Right now the weather is a little dicey so we will work while the weather is nice and if it looks like we are going to get a couple of days in a row that are going to be nasty we’ll take those days as weekends. We’ve gotten a five day week with a two day weekend but we’ve also done a seven day week with a two day weekend and then a ten day week with a two day weekend. It really it just depends…Even working eight hours a day it’s, there is not enough time to take care of stuff after work because you are just, by halfway through you are so tired, you don’t want to do anything after work but you still have to do laundry, you have to go feed yourself…on top of what you do during the day people have to volunteer…you have to clean the cars, check the equipment, replace, fix screens as necessary, sharpen shovels and trowels, just make sure everything is ready for the next day and with a ten day on, four day off schedule it just feels really like there isn’t any time or the willpower to do that.

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She explains that the long work weeks can have a psychological effect on the field technicians, as it becomes difficult to know when one will have time off or when one will be required to work eight or ten days in a row.

Walter and Kathleen’s descriptions of fieldwork are not uncommon. Archaeological fieldwork is notoriously difficult and uncomfortable. Some of my subjects felt that testing stoicism early on in the professionalization process was important. Carl, a museum archaeologist, often runs field schools which are open to the public (as opposed to strictly academic field schools run out of a university and open only to students). He views these field schools as a good way to acquaint people with the realities of archaeological work, allowing them to decide whether the profession is for them or not.

Carl: Not all of them are going to continue in archeology and it’s actually a good learning experience then. I think the whole experience is really important. If you think you want…to be [an archaeologist] but you hate the sun, you hate the dirt, you hate the work and then it’s a good learning experience. I have lost a bunch of them that way. I tell them…archeology, field work, it’s physical labor that’s in the sun that’s punctuated by brief periods of acceleration of finding something. It’s not like it is on the Discovery Channel.

It is important to know if one is willing and able to carry out archaeological work early in one’s career because physical labor is so integral to the profession. Sharon, a CRM archaeologist, explains that the ability to meet the strenuous demands of the work can make or break a career, determining if one goes on in the profession or not.

Sharon: A lot of people just think they can’t even hack it physically. It’s very physically demanding and if you’ve never worked an 8 or 10 hour day, 90º weather, digging holes all day, I mean people pass out. It’s really physically demanding, and you feel bad for people but it’s like, ‘You’ll never, you just wasted your degree.’ I’ve had field techs, two days into the dig go, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’ I’m like, ‘you just got your bachelor’s degree, and that really sucks for you, like it really does.’”

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Here is a continuation of a thread from the previous section regarding hands-on learning: that archaeological knowledge must be, at least, in part, acquired through physical interaction with the environment. The embodiment of archaeological identity is no small matter, as the professional has to accept and be able to meet the intense physical demands that can be placed on the body. In order to have the fully embodied archaeological identity, then, an individual must be tough enough to withstand the conditions in which that identity is forged.

I will also note that my subjects discussed the toughness and grit necessary to be an archaeologist exclusively in the context of conducting fieldwork. They talked about commitment

(see above) as the ability to remain interested in the field in the face of the tedium, monotony, and repetition that occurs in archaeological fieldwork, labwork, and paperwork. Hands-on learning occurs most often in the field but certainly also from handling artifacts and/or working in a lab. The ability to withstand difficult environmental conditions is developed during fieldwork. The most physically demanding job in archaeology is the job at the bottom of the employment hierarchy, that of the field technician (usually the CRM field technician). The conditions in which field technicians work lead to people burning out of the profession, as

Patrick and Brandon, both CRM archaeologists, note.

Patrick: We have field techs who come in here and the average [employment] span of a field tech is only a couple of years. I mean my God, it’s hard physically and mentally, especially if you are working year- round, moving from place to place. Some people, like that’s fine if you are 22 to maybe 25 or 26 years old. There’s people who have stayed in it for a long time doing it, but that’s the exception, by the far exception rather than the rule. It’s very difficult to be a field tech.

Brandon: Some people it might just be they take a few classes and then they become a volunteer on some projects. Other people can make it into a real career, some people make it into a career and become, they get their Bachelor’s, they become field technicians and then they burn out after a couple of years.

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The field technicians, as their title implies, are hired explicitly to conduct fieldwork. Above,

Kathleen, a field technician, outlined a typical field technician work schedule. She works in several states, depending on the needs of the company that employs her, and is often stays in a motel for one to three weeks at a time.

Being able to physically cope with fieldwork conditions without burning out is important in the CRM setting because it can be the gateway to moving up in the profession. Helen, a CRM archaeologist now working as an administrator in a government institutions, and Adam, a former

CRM archaeologist who became an academic archaeologist, both explain that their own full-time positions in CRM came out of work as field technicians, for example.

Helen: I started teching so that I could get back into the realm of things. So, I field teched for a little bit and got really lucky and my first big field tech lead to a permanent job offer. So I went to work for a consultant at that point doing archeology.

Adam: I had done good enough work that I worked for archeological services consultants…After my first year of fulltime work I was promoted to be a field supervisor. So, [it was] my first real opportunity to lead people, to write reports, to do analysis the whole gamut.

Movement from field technician to full-time employee is not uncommon. When asked if they hired full-time employees from the pool of field technicians, June and Kenneth confirm that this is often the case.

June: all of recent ones have been, so they’ve been like a field tech for a little while…I’d say most of them have some field tech experience.

Kenneth: …it’s been my experience that a lot of people hire that internal, hire from that field tech pool…‘Hey I’ve worked with you for 3 months on these sets of the projects, which worked out.’ Yeah, everyone we ever hired, I guess started as kind of a tech, you need a nice trial to find them that way.

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My subjects were clear that accepting the demands of fieldwork—the bugs, the heat, the vegetation, the walking, and the digging—is essential to moving forward in the profession of archaeology. Fieldwork is tough, and the person doing it, as a lifelong commitment to a profession, has to be tougher.

Stoicism in the field, or the ability to endure the physical demands of archaeology, can be connected with love of the outdoors and the connection between one’s environment and archaeology that many of my subjects felt in their youths. Kenneth, a CRM archaeologist, makes the connection between these elements of general habitus and the specific habitus of the archaeologist when he describes the kind of person he feels has the best chance of success in the profession.

Kenneth: …it’s a very physical demanding, physically demanding job. I think that people are trained in a manner that is, “Here is how you would dig a hole in a perfect world.” It’s not that way, and so I’ve always thought that the field techs that do the best work are the ones that come from rural background. Someone that’s built haystacks, someone that’s worked agriculturally in fields, man or woman, someone that has done some sort of physical labor…

What he describes here is the way that an orientation toward physical labor can affect a person’s ability to effectively conduct archaeological work as an adult. Given the importance of hands-on learning and fieldwork, an individual’s future in archaeology may depend on their willingness and actual capacity to do strenuous manual labor. The bodily hexis of the archaeologist, or the embodiment of habitus, plays out in the use of the body as a learning tool (via hands-on learning) and the endurance of the body in challenging environments. Archaeological expertise is forged by training the body and the mind to operate toward a specific purpose (understanding the archaeological record within a landscape) in a setting that only the archaeologist fully appreciates.

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Summary

Here I have analyzed the connections between the general habitus of my interview subjects and the habitus they have developed as professional archaeologists. I have drawn lines between the outlooks and orientations toward the world they had in childhood or young adulthood and the way their view themselves and archaeologists. I have found that the interview subjects speak of the ways they physically interacted with their environments or with objects in their youth, which serves them well as archaeologists who conduct fieldwork outdoors and who analyze objects and features in order the assess their archaeological value. Cultural structures such as popular media instilled a sense of romantic adventure in my interviewees, which still affects their commitment and desire to learn about archaeology today. They are brought to archaeology through an interest in the subject, and the pedagogic authority of the school system directed and honed their interests, giving them the appropriate educational background needed to be employed as archaeologists. While my subjects chose to pursue archaeology, thus denoting an element of personal choice in their occupational selection, working in the profession (in the field, in the lab, as an employee) required an unconscious reorientation of their prior dispositions to accept the realities of archaeological work.

The story my interview subjects tell me, therefore, is one about the way in which the general habitus of the individual informs the specific habitus of the professional. The story makes sense, and the data support it. What is as yet unclear is the mechanism through which the general habitus is transformed into the specific habitus. Where does the transition take place? It may happen gradually over time, but I propose that most students of archaeology have a structured introduction to fieldwork which directs their orientation toward the profession. In the next chapter, I look at one of the most transformative experiences a student of archaeology can

136 go through, the field school. Using ethnographic data, I develop an understanding of the way that individuals are conditioned both implicitly and explicitly to adopt the specific habitus of the archaeologist.

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CHAPTER 7

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD AND THE FIELD OF HABITUS

Emily (returning student): It solidified everything. I was the happiest I’d ever been. I was feeling the most successful that I’d felt. I was really, I was incredibly successful and I just had a great time with everything that we were working on and it was such a great experience that it was, “this is it. I could feel this forever and never get tired of it.”

As she told me about her field school experience, Emily described feeling a sense of belonging and accomplishment. Notably, she explained that the field school “solidified everything,” and decided that “this is it,” indicating that she felt that the field school affirmed her general orientation to the world and directed her future plans. The field school felt like a natural fit and she was able to adapt to the work environment with little trouble. Her attitude and outlook were transformed through her successful acclimatization to the expectations and conditions of the field school. Here, then, is an excellent example of the mental process of the general habitus being transposed into a more specific habitus in a cultural field. Because her general habitus meshed with the expectations placed on her at the field school, Emily had a very positive experience which made adopting elements of the specific habitus of the archaeologist feel natural.

In previous chapters I have analyzed the general habitus of the archaeologist from youth into adulthood, then the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist. In this chapter I examine the locus of the transformation from interested student to professional archaeologist: the

138 archaeological field. The data analyzed here is the product of ethnographic work I conducted in the summer of 2014. As a participant-observer on an archaeological field school, I was able to observe and take part in the professionalizing experience of the field school. Sequentially, my ethnographic work and subsequent interviews with the field school participants took place before my in-depth interviews with professional archaeologists. As an archaeologist myself, I was aware that field schools offer students a chance to conduct actual archaeological work, gaining experience at putting classroom method and theory into practice. After gathering my data and analyzing the material from the professional archaeologists, I began to see a story of the habitus of the individual and the professional emerge. At the same time, my ethnographic observations and participant interviews showed how students are trained to meet expectations of professional behavior, and how their training contributes to the formation of a professional archaeological identity. The picture that emerged from the ethnographic data, then, is one of directed transformation of the student through practice and training.

The archaeological field is one of the most important locations where habitus is imbued in students of archaeology as it is where they learn the interactions between the classroom rules of archaeology and the hands-on practice of their discipline. The arena of fieldwork is therefore akin to what Bourdieu would term the cultural field that hones the general habitus of the student of archaeology into the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist. Before exploring the intersection of these two types of field further, I will clear up a semantic conundrum: both archaeologists and sociologists use the term “field” to different ends. For the archaeologist, the field is where data is recovered; the process of recovering that data is fieldwork. For the sociologist studying habitus, the field is the environmental structure and cultural context which is produced by and influences human practice (Bourdieu 1977:72). In this chapter, I distinguish

139 between the external location of archaeological work as Afield and the cultural field wherein habitus is shaped as Hfield.

Many students studying classical or anthropological archaeology, especially those serious about continuing on in graduate school or becoming professional archaeologists, engage in some kind of fieldwork in their undergraduate or graduate years. While there are other locations which can facilitate the development of archaeological habitus, such as the museum or the laboratory, the Afield, as the origin of archaeological materials, is the initial production site of archaeological knowledge. The Afield also serves as a litmus test for those considering archaeology, as some will feel at home with the norms, conditions, and values embodied in the

Afield experience, while others will find the work incompatible their ideas of work, learning, or academia. Fieldwork will be too difficult, too uncomfortable, too monotonous, too uninteresting, or simply feel futile to some students. The Afield experience weeds people out, filtering out those whose general habitus cannot be transferred to and honed in this intense setting of archaeological work.

The application of Bourdieu’s concept of Hfield to archaeological fieldwork is very apt, as this is the structure within which habitus is produced and the venue within which it is practiced. The Hfield is also perpetuated by the shared practices, understandings, and values of the individuals who come together in this cultural space, a concept that Bourdieu called doxa

(Webb et al 2002:28). The Hfield is not a passive physical space, but rather an intersection of actors, institutions, the body, and doxa (Bourdieu 1990:66). For many archaeologists, the Afield serves as their first encounter with “real” archaeology and is the first time they feel like they are doing the work of a professional. It is a transformative experience which forces them to both adopt new technical skills and to adapt to new normative expectations. It is here they learn the

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“feel for the game” which will serve as a lens through which all other archaeological experiences will be viewed (Bourdieu 1990:66).

Another point of view on the subject of professionalization can be taken from Bosk’s ethnographic research on surgical residents in Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical

Failure (1979). Bosk discusses the construction of professional identity through delineation of professional boundaries, control of performance, and management of error or failure in a teaching hospital (1979:4-5). He explains that considering social control over professional behavior as well as “shared patterns of explaining, understanding, and neutralizing failure and error are critical not only to our understanding of surgeons but indeed to all of the professions in modern American society,” (1979:5). As the Afield is an all-encompassing professionalizing experience for would-be archaeologists, it is an excellent venue to observe how construction of the archaeological habitus through management of norms, expectations, and errors.

Bosk examines how social control and social support were employed in the hospital setting to correct the errors and/or deviant behaviors of surgical residents. Management of medical failures, he finds, was more than a question of correcting technical errors or errors in diagnosis. There is a moral quality to both the construction of what constitutes an error as well as the correction of said error. Medical failures fall into two general categories in Bosk’s (1979) study: technical or judgmental failures and normative or quasi-normative failures. The former are errors of technical competence or diagnostic strategy; these are forgivable but avoidable errors that medical students can manage by improving their skills, by gaining experience, or by receiving guidance from a superordinate (Bosk 1979:37-51). The latter are considered far more serious errors however, and have a distinct moral element attached to them (Bosk 1979:36).

Normative and quasi-normative errors are errors in conduct or violations which upset the

141 working routine of the surgical staff. Normative errors are violations against overarching professional standards of conduct, while quasi-normative errors are violations against the routine of a particular superordinate. These errors are considered markers of imprudence, incompetence, or insubordination: the perpetrator shows him/herself unable to follow the etiquette of the profession. The failure of etiquette calls into question one’s ability to understand and be a working part of the routine in the professional setting. (Bosk 1979:51-67)

Here we can see a way that Bosk’s work complements that of Bourdieu. Bourdieu discusses the manner in which habitus works to influence our actions, thoughts, perspectives, and orientations toward the world. Habitus is created in our earliest Hfield, our childhood home, which is comprised of so many elements not immediately obvious to our younger selves

(socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic inequality, religious affiliation, occupational status of our parents, and regional location, for example). That general habitus leads us to new Hfields which further direct our orientations, expectations, and understandings of the world and our place in it.

Based on our general habitus, these new Hfields make sense to us and feel like a natural progression of our life experience, even when the new Hfields demand much of our time, effort, and attention. Bosk’s work helps us understand how an Hfield is both a physical setting and the actions and interactions within that setting, and how those elements work together to generate a consensus of group identity.

Bosk’s hospital setting and the archaeological field project I studied share important commonalities: there is a strict hierarchy of command, the setting is immersive and somewhat isolating, and the underlying goal of the work conducted within the setting is the induction of the student into the profession. Bosk’s work provided a framework for me to understand the emerging themes on professionalization in the archaeological field. The resulting discussion on

142 social control, combined with Bourdieu’s concept of Hfield, create a more complete picture of the way in which professional archaeological identity is developed through action within specific settings.

In this chapter I look at how the students were trained to meet the professional expectations of the Field Director and other staff of the field school. I examine the ways that students were trained to meet normative expectations such as working in a team, communicating effectively with their teammates, respect for the hierarchy of command, and “toughing it out” in difficult and exhausting environmental conditions. Students also had to translate normative behaviors to fit quasi-normative expectations, as they were placed on teams under the supervision of one of six (seven, if one counts the manager of the archaeological lab) team leaders. Technical training developed as the field school wore on and students were expected to gain technical archaeological skills through the hands-on learning experience of the Afield.

Technical training also evolved into analytical training or training for decision-making skills as students were allowed to take minor leadership roles or work with the archaeological data we recovered.

Training to Meet Normative Expectations

Students were trained throughout the field school (and even prior to the actual school) to meet normative expectations that would ensure not only the smooth running of the field school but also which would serve them well as professional archaeologists. The most important norms which were instilled in the students were teamwork, adherence to the hierarchy, following directions, and speed. As the Field Director notes during her formal interview,

Field Director: I think that when you're working on a very big project like ours, to have them realize that people that are, that their own peers and people that are just above them have a lot of information that they can impart. They don't need to just talk to the Director about these things,

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they can talk to their peers, they can talk to the people above them, they can talk to their team leaders. They need to be able to communicate with their peers, and they need to be able to give instruction, they need to be able to take instruction, and they need to act promptly, and that if you actually don't do these things, there are consequences.

These sentiments were echoed by the Field Manager, who noted that aside from learning how to conduct archaeological work, she wanted them “also to sort of gain experience living in [in another country], to sort of have that experience living in a small community.”

Another norm that came out during the field school was stoicism, or the ability to get through working long hours in high temperatures, painful vegetation, and difficult terrain to complete sound archaeological survey work. The field school was not simply about learning to do what archaeologists do, in this case survey work, it was also about learning to act like archaeologists. As soon as I agreed to take part in the field school, the Field Director told me to start incorporating a stair-climber into my workouts. I laughed, but she was serious. The students got similar advice about preparing themselves physically for the work. We were all also instructed to bring sturdy boots, gloves, and gaiters that would protect us from the thick vegetation. Students and staff spent approximately 9 hours each day in very physically demanding field conditions, so mental and physical fortitude was essential.

The students were primed for taking on new normative behaviors from the start by the

Field Director, who was very clear from the start that she had specific behavioral expectations for the students on the project, and that failure to adhere to those standards would result in disciplinary action or being asked to leave the project. At an early informational meeting regarding the project, she explained to myself and a roomful of students that she expected us all to use what she termed “European manners.” By this she meant that students should be polite at all times, say good morning or good afternoon, be respectful of each other and especially of the

144 local population. They were not to get drunk and be loud, they were not to do or say anything that could be construed as disrespectful or embarrassing because, as the Field Director put it,

Field Director: I’m the one who’ll hear about it. Everyone [in the area] knows who I am, they know who we are, they know you’re my students, and it’s me who’ll get a knock on the door and a ‘do you know what your students were up to last night?’ from the locals. I do not want that. You’ll be polite, you’ll be respectful, or I will ask you to leave.

Whether the threat of dismissal from the project was likely or not, the students certainly took it seriously. The Field Director’s warning was, for the most part, enough to make the students pay attention to their behavior from the beginning of the trip. To drive home the point, the Field Director reiterated to the students that they should be mindful of their manners on several occasions before the group even reached the actual field school location. Before the school began the students were taken on a week-long tour of the country’s main city and historic sites in the surrounding countryside. During this period “European manners” were emphasized again and again. No one wanted to get the infamous “Ferry Talk,” wherein the student was told to amend their behavior or be sent back to the mainland via the local ferry, then travel back to their home institution where they could explain to their advisor exactly what had gotten them kicked off of the project. The Ferry Talk was considered the ultimate punishment, and it is worth noting that it was to be given in cases where the student’s behavior was called into question rather than his or her technical skill. Here we can see what Bosk observed among the surgical residents, that the most egregious errors are not those of skill or analytical judgement, but of unacceptable behavior.

The discussion of “manners” underscores the importance of teamwork in the field school.

The focus on manners turned the students’ attention outward, making them aware of their fellow students, the field school staff, and the local population. The early emphasis on proper behavior

145 thus helped prepare the students for two normative expectations which would become an integral part of their fieldwork experience: the ability to work in a team and the ability to understand and follow the hierarchy of command. Another early strategy to encourage teamwork, set the expected pace of activity, and establish the working hierarchy of the field school was to make the returning students responsible for the new students in some ways. Before fieldwork began, students got a tour of major historic sites in the main city and the countryside. During the tour a

“buddy system” was instituted in which the student assistants (all of whom were returning students) were asked to pair up with a new student to answer any questions and to make sure the new students didn’t fall behind or get lost during the breakneck speed of the tour. Added responsibilities such as this were framed as part of the professionalizing experience for the student assistants, as they would need to be proactive, aware, and responsible in the Afield.

Falling behind or getting lost was a real concern, as the Field Director moved students very quickly from one venue to the next. Walking from one historical site to another, the students formed a long column winding through the city streets. Although many students had their own maps of the city, there was certainly no time to stop and determine our location as we sped from one place to the next. On several occasions the Field Director moved down the line of students as they walked, pointing out where there were “gaps” in the line, or places where students were not keeping up with their peers.

“Here’s a gap,” she waved her arm at a car-length space between two students. “Keep up!” She moved down the line as the students passed her. “Gap!” she waved again. “Gap!” The gaps became more frequent the further down the line she got, as some of the students struggled to keep up with those more experienced, more familiar with their surroundings, or fitter than

146 themselves. “Where’s your buddy?” she asked student assistants clustered near the front of the line. “Find your buddy! We have a lot to get through today!”

At each tour location she would confer with the team leaders, particularly the Field

Manager and the Apotheke5 Manager, who would often give short talks or small guided tours through the sites. The talks, the student time to “wander and snap their photos,” and the time it would take to get to the next location were planned down to the minute. At one site she instructed the Apotheke Manager, “You’ll talk for 9 minutes, then 12 minutes for them to walk around and take their pictures, then we’re off.”

Training the students to think as a team, to respect the hierarchy of command, to follow directions, and to be conscious of time management served as a foundation for the behavioral expectations in the field school itself. Before fieldwork actually started the students were given two days to practice measuring distance through their pacing, using clickers to keep track of their steps, and taking as azimuth with a compass. Here, the Field Director made a point of emphasizing to the student assistants the responsibilities of their new leadership roles. They were instructed to watch how the students were interacting with one another and taking direction in what were considered relatively mild Afield conditions.

As fieldwork began and progressed, it became obvious that there was a growing social divide between the students. The returning students formed their own clique, inviting only two of the new students into their group, and the rest of the new students were left to their own devices during their free time and on the weekends. During group dinners the new vs. returning student social separation was obvious as these groups sat apart from one another. The returning students became known as the “back porch” people, so named because of the rooming arrangements placing more of the returning students together at the back of one of the rooming

5 An apotheke is a facility for processing and storing artifacts. 147 houses. The returning students would often congregate in the evenings on the back porch, leaving the new students to the front porch of the house. Here was a potential tension between the two norms of respect for hierarchy and teamwork. Socially, the returning students all knew each other and were already a tight-knit group, having bonded in the extreme conditions of the field the year before (a few of the students had been on the field school all three years). I became interested in whether or not this social divide would translate in the fieldwork.

Moreover, the hierarchy of the school naturally set these groups apart, as the returning students were promoted to being student assistants and given the responsibility of acting as assistants, scouts, and even advisers to their team leaders. Would the social and professional differences between the new and the returning students make teamwork in the field more difficult?

Some students noticed occasional tension in the Afield between the new and returning students. One of the student assistants recalls a moment when one of the new students threatened the established hierarchy of the fieldwork, causing a minor argument during fieldwork on my team when I asked Sarah, a first year student and a regular on my team, to make sure the students were all ready to move on to the next Tract:

Nancy (returning student): I went out with you that one day when Hannah was sick and I remember the second I got out there Sarah was in charge and I was like and I knew she'd been with you since it started and she knew what she was doing and she knew how your team worked and I was just kind of like, cool, Sarah knows what she's doing. I'm not going to get in the way, Sarah knows what she's doing, and I don't think Philip could handle that like Sarah was very good at leadership…Philip, he kind of wanted that superiority a little bit, he wanted to still feel like a leader.

The incident highlighted to me the importance of the hierarchy among the students (I had asked Sarah because I knew Philip was still writing his notes). It left Sarah somewhat annoyed and rattled that her competence was being questioned simply because of her rank as a new

148 student rather than because of her actual ability in the Afield. She did not, however, consider the incident an indicator of a larger problem between the new and the returning students in the field, commenting:

Sarah (new student):…on my team I never had a problem, but I was friends with everyone. The only issue I ever had was working with Philip in the fields, but that was just a difference in personalities I think. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him. It was just I don’t think that we were meant to work together.

Despite incidents such as these, the students seemed to feel that there was a high degree of camaraderie in the Afield, and that the fieldwork was a bonding experience.

Emily (returning student): I think we also sort of, once we got out into the field, and saw sort of the people that were pushing themselves out there, not necessarily the strongest person, or the fastest person, but the person that was putting forth the effort. I think that had a lot to do with it too. We could see who was pushing and who wasn’t.

Elizabeth (new student): [New vs. returning] definitely created a separation, but I don't think it affected the teams, I think it was mostly outside the individual teams, so it was more a social concern rather than a work concern.

Sandra (returning student, on letting social tensions go in the field): I tried really hard to not let it affect me. Like we had problems…there was like a lot of clashing but I think I tried not to let it affect it me. Like, I tried to just let go.

Susan (new student, on the dynamics of interaction in the field): Sometimes I felt like the assistants could be unnecessarily bossy and sometimes if they kind of realized that they were and they'd apologize cause I just I would say oh so sorry if I'm doing anything wrong it was like oh no crap sorry I shouldn't have snapped at you that much sort of thing.”

Lisa (new student): No it really didn’t manifest itself in the field and so but as soon as that was over they would judge you outside of the field for things that you did in the field, I felt like but not in the field.

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Nancy, a returning student, explains the need to separate the social from the field but also the field from the social:

Nancy (returning student): …we would go home with all these people and you would live with them have dinner with them and you would have to go out in the field with them and like yell at them to hurry up and like to crawl through things you knew were hurting them and we get like how to separate things like that.

The message here is that the demands of the field were so different from the setting of social life that they needed to remain separate spheres of interaction.

Teamwork was often promoted by the team leaders, as it was necessary to keep morale up and get through difficult field conditions. As the Field Manager notes,

Field Manager: I did notice [the social divide] and I’m wondering, I kind of wondered if the field work would give them more of a team spirit and comradely with the first years when we got on to the island. It didn’t seem to be the case. So, I don’t know that the division of tasks helped or worsened the situation just because there did seem to be a social--and I think I didn’t realize until the end how much of a social division that there had been among the group. I tried very hard however, every day that I took my group out in the field to promote that comradely basically in the first and second years and we seemed to have pretty good days out there, yeah.

For my part, I was careful to give all of the students, new and returning, tasks vital to the fieldwork. At the beginning of each day I would assign a student the task of drawing a map of each Tract we walked, showing the direction we walked, the slope of the land, a north arrow, and any important structures or notable features we encountered (for example: goat sheds, fences, or terraces). Another student would be in charge of making sure the students were lining up at the correct intervals and that they were ready to go in a timely manner. A third would keep track of the vegetation and ground cover. I often asked my student assistant to help me scope the next

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Tract and decide where we should begin and end each Tract survey. My approach was thus to keep everyone so busy that social divides were too much of an effort to maintain.

As the ability to follow directions with little question was another expected norm, such a strategy worked fairly well. Team leaders were instructed to expect students, both new and returning, to follow our directions promptly and without complaint. “The last thing we want,” the Field

Director told us on more than one occasion, “is independent thinking, you know, in a bad way.”

One student, Donald, became very interested in learning more about the artifacts he had found in the Afield, and asked the Apotheke Manager to tell him more about them. She told him he could see it the following day, after it had been washed. “Yeah, maybe,” he replied, indicating that he felt he was being fobbed off and that he was never going to learn about the thing that he had brought in. Field Director and the Assistant Field Director are disdainful of this expectation of what a field school is like. “Maybe if they’re finding one thing a day!” the Field Director said later at a meeting as the Apotheke Manager related the story to her. In many cases, it seemed that field school was not the place to learn about archaeology or even about the mechanics of practicing archaeology, but rather the place to practice archaeology by doing what one was told.

In another example, one of my team members, Dot, decided to walk a leg of her field of the field site cross from 50m back to the datum point. To explain the context, the datum for the field site is the reference point on an archaeological site from which measurements are taken. In this case, measurements were taken in all cardinal directions from the datum point to determine the size of the site. Students would start with tape measures at the datum point and walk 10 meters north, south, east, or west, looking all the while for finds along the path of their line. At the 10 meter mark they would stop and do an intensive search in an area one meter in circumference. If this spot was positive (i.e. yielded archaeological material), the student would

151 continue another 10 meters and do the same thing. He or she would repeat this process until they encountered two negative intensive pick-up spots (for example, if they stopped at 30 meters and found nothing and stopped at 40 meters and found nothing, the site would be said to have ended in that cardinal direction somewhere between the 20 meter and 30 meter mark). For obvious reasons, one must start at the datum point and work their way out to determine the size and density of the archaeological site. Dot had decided to measure out a full 50 meters with her tape measure (which was not uncommon, many students did this to avoid the hassle of carrying the tape while searching for artifacts). Instead of returning to the datum point and progressing at 10 meter intervals from there, however, she decided to simply walk back along the line from 50 meters and do intensive pick-ups every 10 meters. When the incident was related to Field

Director, she shook her head and commented, “you know, all those management manuals say initiative in your employees is a good thing. I just think ‘Really? Is it?'” Here, Dot’s attempt at efficiency ran counter to the purpose of the methodology, which was to allow an understanding of the archaeological site from the reference point of the datum, thus her independent thinking was not welcome.

The environmental conditions that the students encountered were difficult and demanding, which led to the promotion of another norm: stoicism.

Sarah (new student): I think I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn’t realize how hard it was actually going to be and how much getting up and down a mountain, how much mentally that takes as well as physically.

Susan (new student): Yeah the worst was just being…in some places like the vegetation would be really thick or there would be rocks or bushes. You get used to it very quickly though.

The students were expected to put up with difficult environmental conditions with little complaint. To complain that the vegetation was too tall or spiky, that the temperature was too

152 hot, or that the work was too physically demanding was a taboo. Complaining might lead to being labeled as someone unable to keep up or even as someone not competent to do the work.

Weekday evenings the staff would meet to discuss the events of the day, how many Tracts had been walked (this was of paramount concern as a time management issue), what we had found, and how the students were working. The most common complaint from the team leaders was regarding students who were “dragging their heels” or reluctant to put in their full effort. One of the student assistants became somewhat infamous during these meetings for her penchant for lining up the other students for Tract walking from the crest or the base of the hill, thus herself avoiding the most serious vegetation and the most difficult terrain. Eventually the Field Director decided that a day or two on the team covering the steepest part of the field site would bring her back in line. It was a subtle but effective strategy to force the student to contribute her full effort to the project.

Being stoic about the field conditions was also viewed as an indicator of ability: the student that could put up with the conditions seemed better suited to the work and therefore more competent. One of the students explains the link between toughness and competence:

Karen (new student): I mean in the field I was put on teams with people who weren’t necessary my favorite people, but as long as everyone got work done I was working on the same thing, but when I noticed if there was someone who was just kind of incompetent or something I’ll go, “Oh my God I will not want to go on a team with this person.”

When asked to further explain what constitutes incompetence, she replies:

…like, say I was like walking the tracks and it’s really rough vegetation and like terraces…after a while you just, it wasn’t that you got used to it being always hard, but you just kind of got used to being like, you would just try…there were some people who are just, “I can’t do this.” I felt even then people would just be like, “This just doesn’t work, well, just move on,” or they would be like, “I just can't go through this,” and I would be

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like, “I’m on it too and my terrain is exactly the same as yours,” so like go through it. (Karen, new student)

Students saw the ability to deal with conditions in the field as an important part of the identity of the archaeologist. As returning student James puts it,

James (returning student): …you can’t be princesses at all. You have to be able to accept cuts and nicks and spiders and big evil devil hornets and things. You just have to accept that and get on with it and you have to be careful with what you are working with.

Perhaps most importantly, the field work was the “real” archaeological work that many students had paid dearly to experience. Students often commented on their sense of accomplishment at tackling the dense vegetation and rocky mountainsides of the Afield site, others relished taking part in the strenuous physical activity.

Nancy (returning student): I always say that [this school] was the best thing I've ever done. It was the best choice I ever made, was to go…we always say that we came back from the first year a different person, like you just left and you came back and you're like, I'm stronger, I'm tougher, I know what I can do and I know what I want.

Elizabeth (new student): Yeah, I actually felt amazing out there, when I got home I nearly died, like. But, um, I felt like I'm a lot more capable than I thought I was, [I have] a lot more mental and physical strength, which is always nice to know.

Elizabeth (new student, on the respect she feels she’s gotten for making it through the field school): [They were] quite shocked at the sometimes dangerous conditions, I have to say. In the case of my brother, he's a soldier, he was quite suprised how similar it was to what he's done as a soldier, like he just couldn't believe it, but mostly I think I just got respect for having done that because obviously going away from home for so long at a young age, and doing hard work, they thought that was respectable, so, that's what I was mostly greeted with.

Dot (new student): …field work, it’s weird I actually enjoyed the fact that I was exercising, but it was, it didn’t seem like it.

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Susan (new student): I did it and I really like it, it was probably the hardest thing I've ever done but I just thought you know if I can do this, I can pretty much do anything.

Susan (new student): I was kind of preparing myself for the worst. I honestly didn't know what to expect and but what I found, it was, it wasn't horrible. It was hard but it was good at the same time.

Donald (new student): [We were] lying on the hillside in the vegetation and I turned to everybody and I said there are only a couple thousand people in the entire world who would think this was fun. [laughs]

Training students to meet normative expectations was an essential part of the field school experience. Students had to “learn the rules of the game,” as Bourdieu would put it, in order to survive in the Afield and thrive in the Hfield. Looking back at the elements of specific habitus delineated by the professional archaeologists that I interviewed, we can see that students were expected to embrace the difficult conditions of the fieldwork and connect stoicism to archaeological practice. Students were also trained to respect the hierarchy of command and work as a team, behaviors which ensured that the work ran smoothly and was completed as efficiently as possible.

Training to Meet Quasi-normative Expectations

Aside from the overarching normative expectations placed on students, they also had to fulfill quasi-normative expectations. Bosk described quasi-normative errors as those specific to the attendings that oversaw each group of surgical residents (1979:61). At the field school students were placed into teams, each with a different team leader with their own approach to archaeological fieldwork. Here, I discuss the ways that students were trained to meet the expectations of their specific team leaders. While teamwork, respect for hierarchy, the ability to follow directions, and toughness were required by all team leaders, what constituted each of

155 those things could vary from team to team. Failure of the students to learn the implicit rules of their team could result in clashing with their team leader, the Field Director, or in the implementation of corrective measures.

Teams were usually comprised of four to six students plus a team leader. Each team was given a specific section of the archaeological field area to survey, and the manner in which that area was divided up and surveyed was, for the most part, at the discretion of the team leader. I might divide up a large hillside into three Tracts, for example, while another team leader might divide it into two or four, depending on where he or she felt natural starting and stopping points might be for those Tracts. Likewise, leadership style and daily work schedules differed from team to team. One team leader allowed the students to take a short breaks upon completion of a set of Tracts, took down information from the students (distances, items found, vegetation coverage) before moving on to the next set. Her philosophy was also to give the students at least

15 minutes of sitting time each day where she was not asking them for information or talking about the project. “They deserve a few minutes of time without me every day,” she explained to me. I usually took information as we completed Tracts throughout the morning, then allowed the students what became known as “second breakfast” (so-called after the habit of the Hobbits to take a mid-morning snack in The Lord of the Rings tales), gave water breaks (but not usually sitting breaks) until lunchtime, allowed a ½ hour for lunch, then completed the rest of the day with a short break before going back to the car to get our gear in order.

Another team leader, Theresa, was notorious for allowing very few sitting breaks for her students, instead keeping them on their feet and moving at all times. “She’s a slave driver,” one of the students stated bluntly to me one day during lunch. A student assistant later told me that

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Theresa was difficult to work with, recounting an incident in the field where she was overwhelmed by the demands that Theresa was placing on her.

Sandra (returning student): I was being shouted at by about eight people at once. There was a farmer asking why we were in the field and I was trying to tell people where to go because [the Tract they were walking at the time] was a tricky piece of land, and she was yelling at me to come here. I was like, I need a fucking minute, everyone is yelling at me. I had had almost no sleep for three nights. She took me aside and said, ‘you seem cross today.’ I was like, yeah, I’m fucking cross! You try going on 12 hours of sleep collectively for three days! You would be grumpy too! But I just thought that was such a funny way to put it: ‘you seem cross.’” [laughs]

Here, the student assistant was trying to fulfill her obligations in the hierarchy of command and carry out her in managing teamwork, but Theresa’s main concern was in Sandra’s appearance of insubordination or a poor attitude. The interaction caused work to stop momentarily as team harmony was disrupted. The telling of this tale prompted another student to recount her own experience with Theresa, during which a similar instance of perceived insubordination led to a severe reprimand from the Field Director.

“At least she took you aside and talked to you about it,” Elizabeth said, nodding as she listened to the story (she was sitting above me on a ledge). “She didn’t rat you out for doing one little thing.” Elizabeth was referring to an incident where she had been swinging a stick and scaring chickens near a farmhouse while walking Tracts. This behavior upset Theresa, who made the point at an evening meeting in which she discussed the incident with the Field Director that we always tried to be quick and quiet and not disturb people or animals while walking the

Tracts. Elizabeth had also been perceived by Theresa as having an unfavorable attitude and for putting in less effort than other students. She spoke to the Field Director about Elizabeth, who had also had a roommate complain that Elizabeth was disrespectful to her. This was enough for

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Elizabeth to get “The Ferry Talk,” (see above). Here then, we see that the opinion of the team leader that a student was failing to act as a team player as well as complaints of the same from another student led to prompt corrective action. The corrective action was aimed at reforming behavior, in this case both in the field and outside of it.

Team composition changed frequently throughout the field school as the students got injured or sick, as work in the apotheke required more student workers, as team leaders came and went, and as the project itself moved from Phase I (walking large swathes of land) to Phase II

(more intense survey in smaller, more specific areas). One team leader landed a full-time job one Thursday during the field school, he was required to begin the following Monday. A team leader was brought in to start on the Phase II work as the rest of the teams were finishing up the

Phase I work, and another team leader was brought in toward the end of the field school to help with the Phase II work. Some students stayed on one team for most of the field school, while others bounced from team to team each week. No student remained on only one team for the entirety of the field school, however, affording them all the opportunity to become familiar with the working style of more than one team leader. New student Jennifer actually worked on every team and notes that each had its own distinct style:

Jennifer (new student): I worked on every single team. Int: All right, do you think that helped you, working on a whole bunch of different teams, or did you like to stop on one team? Jennifer: I liked that. No. I liked being on different teams because then I could see how everybody’s leading style was. I got to work with all sorts of people. Every team had a different dynamic of how they did things, so it was kind of cool to see all of it.

Similarly, returning student James notes differences between styles of leadership:

James (returning student): …they were very, very different and Jay, he got a lot of work done but he was also fairly laid back and like he preferred fewer breaks and Judy was more oriented I guess, more focused and yeah

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we didn’t have as many breaks with Judy…and I can’t think much about Stephanie, and she was a good team leader I guess. She didn’t really have, she doesn’t stand out in my mind anyway.

Normative and quasi-normative expectations did not always mesh with one another. I myself violated a normative expectation as a team leader by forgetting to give my students lunch one day as we worked through a difficult set of field sites in Phase II of the projects. “That’s not acceptable,” I was told by both the Field Director and the Field Manager. I had clearly failed in my responsibility as a team leader and breached the trust of my team that I would put their well- being over that of the project. Although the students were hardly shaken by it and never complained or even mentioned it to myself or the other staff members, I felt compelled to admit my mistake and was properly chastised for it.

The most notable example of a clashing of quasi-normative and normative expectations on the project was the case of Louis, a team leader brought in specifically to get a jump start on the Phase II archaeological work while the rest of the teams were finishing up the Phase I work.

The relationship between the Field Director and Louis quickly soured as it became obvious that

Louis and the Field Director had very different ideas about how the archaeological work should be carried out.

Connor (returning student): Yeah yeah I was on his team steadily for like a week, the whole time he was there actually. At first there was, where do I begin, there was like conflict between him and the Field Director because the way that he was performing his duties, he thought that was the way she wanted them to be performed. At least that what he conveyed to me. He was under the impression this was how the Field Director wants it to be performed and then she would keep telling him to do different things like do it different ways. According to him she never explained anything to him.

One of his most egregious normative violations was in how he managed the time of the students during and after the fieldwork:

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Emily (returning student): …time management under Louis’s hands was not as strong as it could have been and there was a lot of time wasted…everyone else on his team too had the potential to be doing so much more. They were wasting a lot of time, and when direction was given it was sort of confused. They weren’t 100% sure of what they were supposed to be doing, or how much was too much, or how little was too little, or what exactly the Field Director was looking for. I think that it was never properly communicated what she was looking for, because I don’t think Louis understood what was really the goal of everything.

Louis asked the Field Director how long he could have the students work after the Afield day and was told that the students were not to work after 9 p.m. Louis seemed somewhat dismayed by this. His expectation of both student toughness and compliance was thus formed in an environment where nonstop during the field school was normal. The Field Director said that that’s not the way she wanted to run her field school. The students here were expected to work an extra 1 ½ to two hours in the evening in addition to the work they did in the field, plus

Saturday mornings, plus any other assignments the Field Director chose to give them. This meant that their days were 5:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., plus 1 ½ to 2 hours after the fieldwork, plus an hour for the group dinner, plus any other duties they are given. This boiled down to about 2 hours of time off per day that isn’t spent sleeping or getting prepared to do something. She asked us, “does that sound wussy?” as she wondered whether that was too much free time.

Louis’s response to this was, “fuck off, I’m sure I can find other students who are as insane about this as I am.” The Field Director told him to limit his extra demands on the students’ time to one extra meeting per day and time after the fieldwork was completed if necessary.

After Louis left the project, the Field Director turned her attention toward

“decontaminating" the students who had worked with him because she felt he had not been following the Phase II methodology properly. The students who had worked on his team were taken out of the field and placed in the apotheke for a few days so that they could be “retrained”

160 according to the methodology the Field Director was using. This was viewed by several as a kind of punishment, as apotheke work was seen as being less like “real” archaeological work than being out in the Afield. The experience left the students feeling a lack of strong direction, as they were unsure whether to take the direction of their team leader in the field or their Director out of the field.

Int: What was the experience like working with Louis? Karen (new student): Punishment I felt like that. Int: Working with Louis felt like punishment? Karen: It was so inconsistent it was just like, we always, we would do, like Phase II pick up because it was like she apparently developed a new system…I was still getting used to the normal like Tract walking and like, identifying all different rocks. I guess putting into the pace you pick up, it was like a trial. Then it was like, I don’t know. Then every day the Field Director would like tell Louis something and Louis would be like, “No we have to do this now because we didn’t do this right.” It was a little frustrating.

On being placed in apotheke, Karen further notes:

Karen (new student): I mean the first day it was great and then it was kind of like, I don’t know I felt like ashamed not ashamed I was like, well I may not really feel like I needed help. (Karen, new student)

In instances when the goals of the team leader and the Field Director were not completely in sync, a breakdown in communication and productivity occurred, which affected student learning.

The above example shows the importance of the hierarchy of command in the running of the field school: Louis’s expectations were considered secondary to those of the Field Director, and his failure to bring his training in-line with what the Field Director considered acceptable slowed down work for several days.

Training students to meet quasi-normative expectations was an exercise in both maintaining the hierarchy of command and in teamwork. The teams were meant to act as

161 cohesive units, and that cohesion was to be encouraged by team leaders. For their part, students were expected to trust their team leaders and follow direction without question. Learning to work on different teams and fulfill the expectations of different team leaders required students to be adaptable workers, a trait that the professional archaeologists I interviewed considered essential for pursuing a career in archaeology. Working with different teams in the field gave students an opportunity to adjust to disparate leadership styles and team dynamics. The goal of the work in the Afield was for all teams to conduct pedestrian survey quickly and efficiently, thus failure to work with one’s teammates toward that goal was not tolerated by the Field

Director.

Training to Meet Technical Standards

The goal of any field school is ostensibly to teach students archaeological methods and to allow them to gain experience applying those methods on an actual archaeological project. What skills the students learn is dependent on a number of factors, such as the goals of the project, the timeframe for the work, the number of students participating in the project, and the location of the work. A pedestrian survey method geared toward pottery identification worked very well in the more arid Mediterranean climate of our project, for example, but would be out of place in eastern North America. Because the our project was pressed for time and had a large area of ground to cover, students were not encouraged to design and implement their own archaeological projects. These factors helped dictate the parameters of the skill set that students developed over the course of the project. As the Field Director states,

Field Director: I think the core goals of ethics, working as a team, things like that...the thing that changes is technical knowledge. The idea of people moving around and taking more responsibility, that stays the same, so the only thing that really changes is the technical information, and the types of responsibilities the returnees get.

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Here there is some separation from Bosk’s discussion of technical errors and the technical skills the students were expected to develop during the field school. Bosk noted that technical errors were those were rare errors of skill that were speedily reported to one’s superordinate (1979:38-39). On the field school, technical skills were the applied skills learned by students that allowed them to carry out archaeological work. They were skills that came with familiarity of the procedures of the survey method the Field Director chose to employ. These skills included learning one’s pace (i.e. how to measure distance by pacing), taking an azimuth on a compass, learning the local vegetation, identifying pottery and other archaeological materials, learning to identify the local geomorphology, keeping an accurate field journal, and tagging and bagging archaeological materials correctly. The skills specific to the field school were to be learned through hands-on experience rather than through extensive training or classroom instruction. The Field Director explains what she wanted the students to learn from a technical standpoint:

Field Director: …I wanted them to learn how to understand the methodology that we were using, to understand the terms we were using, to be able to line up, to be able to work as a team, to be able to record their data, to be able to recognize sherds and the lithics and slag and collect them. I wanted them to be able to understand why we were recording things as much as we did, I wanted them to be able to photograph things with a scale in it and have, like, an actual photograph that could be useful, I wanted them to learn how to record and document those photographs, and to learn how to document the whole process, and if we hadn't've been under such a crunch it wouldn’t, they would have had more time in the apotheke as well, but I think, you know, the apotheke is just a different type of recording and they got a lot of recording experience in the in the field.

While a great deal of time and effort went into instilling normative expectations into the students, considerably less time was spent training them to carry out the actual archaeological work. I was surprised to find that students got very little 163 technical instruction before going into the field: two days of pacing and learning how to use a compass and approximately an hour in the apotheke looking at the kinds of archaeological materials they would be expected to identify in the Afield. Most of the students and the staff seemed to find this to be sufficient to get the group started, however. Later, when the project moved from Phase I to Phase II survey, Caroline

(another staff member) and I pushed for a day to train the students but this was nixed by the Field Director. Instead, the students met at the car park at their usual time and were briefed on the new survey method before heading out into the field for the day.

Field Manager (staff): I think they had adequate instruction in the basic methodology for field survey. I think I wouldn’t say field work in general just because I mean it’s not like we were teaching them excavation methods or things like that. I think as first time participants on the field projects they got adequate instruction for the roles that we had them working in. (Field Manager, the field manager for the project)

Another team leader, Stephanie, indicates that the instruction the students received on this field school was similar to the kind they had received on her previous field school.

Stephanie (staff): With the students we had a similar kind of thing in the beginning where they were kind of, we would take them to where we stored our ceramics and things and kind of show them examples of what they were looking for. Then we would kind of do like a pace training.

Students were expected to learn “on-the-job” while in the Afield. It was assumed by the

Field Director and the team leaders that students were motivated to learn in the Afield, making this a good example of the way in which the Afield serves as the Hfield. Students who are unable to adapt to the conditions of the field and who are unable to take in new information under those conditions are probably not destined to continue on in archaeology. To use

Bourdieu’s game or sport analogy, the methodology used on any given project is the strategy of the game, and the students are learning the rules while they are playing.

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Field Director: The most important part of field schools…is to help the students realize the multi-faceted nature of the job, so that they have to be ethical, they have to be honest, they have to work together, they have to be professional and communicate. It's not one thing, it's like teaching them all facets, or exposing them to all facets of the job.

When asked later what they had learned during the field school, most students felt they had picked up valuable archaeological skills and put them into practice. James, Elizabeth, Connor,

Sarah, and Susan all indicate that, among other things, they learned to identify the most prevalent type of artifacts we encountered, pottery.

James (returning student): Yeah, I guess I learned the methodology for a survey of archeology and I learned how to work in an apotheke, so how to wash sherds, how to catalogue sherds, how to photograph sherds.

Elizabeth (new student): I think the biggest skill was being able to identify pottery and how to know that it was relevant to our research, like how to know it was from the time period we were interested in.

Connor, Sarah, and Susan note that the importance of identifying pottery through the physical process of conducting the archaeological survey. Finding it in the landscape was an essential (and exciting) part of their learning experience.

Connor (returning student): I can do a surface survey now, I can identify different parts of pottery. I was really surprised honestly when I started picking up pottery and being able to be like oh that's a rim…it was pretty interesting and I can tell you a about the archaeology of the [project area] a little bit now.

Sarah (new student): I learned field-walking and identifying artifacts on the ground as you pass them…I guess just survey in general, I guess to learn all of that and then I got a little bit of the GIS map. I got to see some of that. I learned how to walk the landscape, but to also understand the landscape.

Susan (new student): I learned how to define between the different types of pottery, the different shapes different materials, umm I did remember

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what prehistoric looked like anyway because that was very discernible sometimes others were a bit more difficult. It took me a while to learn this cause I remember on my first day we were walking through a field and I was, like oh my god I found a pottery sherd! And [the team leader] was like, this is modern and I was like oh crap.

Even when students feel they did not get enough initial instruction or that their training was lacking in some way, they still admit that they were able to learn valuable skills such as identification of archaeological materials and mapping through their own initiative.

Elizabeth (new student): I feel like I didn't get enough training in the beginning. I think I picked up a lot of it by myself mostly when I was working in the apotheke when I actually got to see the different types of pottery, and just the odd bit here and there as the weeks went on from assistants and whatnot saying "oh this is a rock and how you can tell is by doing this different thing," you know, so I feel like there wasn't enough basic instruction from my original team leader.

Jennifer (new student): Doing things, you just kind of jumped right into the field and a lot of us didn’t really know what we were looking for, or what the differences were in things. So, that was something that took a lot of time to figure out. Int: Okay. So, the actual like identification… Jennifer: Yeah. Like what was diagnostic and what wasn’t. Some of that stuff because we weren’t completely clear on until those last 2 weeks about like this is diagnostic. But it was because of this like we were, which I guess is part of the field school, but some of it would have been nice to like have day in the Apotheke and just kind of all laid out for us.

Emily (returning student): I think what surprised me the most outside of obviously all of the new things that I learned, I hadn’t really expected to leave the 1st year or even last year knowing how to run a GIS program.

Lisa describes the importance of merging what she learned through instruction in the apotheke and what she encountered in the field.

Lisa (new student): I think like the more, since I spent more time in the apotheke with the Apotheke Manager like washing pottery and storing pottery and categorizing pottery, labelling it whatever, like since I handled

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it so much, I started to be able to feel like oh like this is like a rough sort of coarse layer like and it is dark red with like dark stripe in the middle. This is like diagnostic for Bronze Age. So, then in the field I was able to be like click, click [imitates the handheld clicker students used in the field to count artifacts]…So, that was helpful.

The students’ general habitus had led them to the Afield, which gave them an opportunity to further hone that habitus by taking advantage of their immersion in an archaeological project.

The technical skills they picked up were, in many ways, almost seen as an afterthought in comparison to the behavioral norms they were being taught. At one point, while waiting for the students to complete a museum tour near the project area, I brought this up to the Field Director.

She told me her philosophy regarding technical training versus the normative socialization in her field school:

Field Director: They’ll get the technical stuff, they have it. Any one of these kids can tell you the methodology we’re using on this project. I want them to know the normative stuff. Being an archaeologist isn’t the end all be all—it isn’t the base of the food pyramid. It’s not at the base, but it’s not at the top either. It’s not like your snacks, but it can’t be your proteins and carbohydrates either. It’s somewhere in the middle. You can’t just be good at doing archaeology.

Students were expected to learn technical skills at the field school more through experience in the Afield than through formal classroom instruction. Their technical training calls to mind both the general habitus of the individual interested in archaeology and the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist. The professional archaeologists that I interviewed indicated that as children or young adults they enjoyed hands-on learning experiences. As professional archaeologists, they stressed the importance of being able to learn on the job, particularly out in the Afield. At the field school I observed the students learning technical skills through physical interaction with the landscape. The field school illustrated bodily hexis, or the process of acquisition and reproduction of unconscious rules of behavior through physical action. 167

The students encountered objects which (with some guidance from their team leaders) they were able to identify as archaeological materials, thus creating the archaeological record as they surveyed the land. They learned to use their bodies in a new way, in a way concordant with archaeological work; they literally learned to walk (or, in this case, to pace) like an archaeologist.

The physical, corporeal nature of the training for technical skills that I observed provided a connection between the general and specific habitus of the professional archaeologist.

Training for Analytical Skills/Decision-making

Returning students were expected to take their technical skills a step further and begin to make analytical decisions on the project. Training for to meet expectations of analytical thinking or to develop decision-making skills coincides with Bosk’s discussion of the judgement calls surgical residents were required to make. In the hospital, judgements were made in diagnosing patients and in deciding on courses of treatment (Bosk 1979:45). In the Afield, student assistants were allowed to develop their analytical skills through writing site reports for Phase II site testing and their decision-making skills by being allowed to direct teams under the supervision of a team leader. Both the surgical residents and the archaeology students were called upon to use decision-making skills based on their position in the hierarchy: the more experience and seniority a person had, the more decisions they would be called upon to make and the more material they would be expected to analyze.

The reports were the primary way that student assistants were asked to attempt analysis of the archaeological materials they came across in the field. Once Phase II site testing began, student assistants were expected to write one or two site reports each evening. In order to write the reports, the student assistants had to take down a description of the location, topography, vegetation, major land features, and original Tract report information in their notebooks. They

168 also needed a description of the datum location and an explanation as to why it was placed in that particular location (for example, it might be placed based on the original Tract information and because a small cluster of pottery sherds was found in that location). Each cardinal line from the datum point had to be described, as well as each quadrant (northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest). The descriptive information would serve as a basis for the site report’s conclusion, which had to include the approximate size of the site, whether it was encompassed by the original field site identified during Phase I survey, and it’s general behavior (for example, whether it was eroding downhill, densities within it found near outcrops, or whether it was split over two fields). The students then had to explain what the site might be indicating about human behavior in this area: was it a settlement over a large hillside or a small habitation site? Was it occupied over several time periods, or did the site finds indicate only one occupation phase?

Here is where students were asked to analyze the archaeological material they encountered in the

Afield and infer something about human behavior based on those materials.

Although they were quite short, only one to two pages in length, the students found writing the reports to be challenging, time-consuming, but ultimately rewarding as they were symbolic of their status as higher-level students. Being asked to write a report meant that one was expected to take on a new responsibility but also to interact with the archaeological materials on more than simply a cursory level. Students were looking at the landscape and the archaeological materials and drawing conclusions about their relationships, which was a real archaeological task rather than a training exercise.

Nancy (returning student): …like we were just kind of united under, we were under so much pressure to get things done and there was so much drama going on behind the scenes and we were rushing to get done with papers and write the site reports and have meetings and write the corrections and the only people that understood that were other people that were writing the site reports and under the same kind of pressure…

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Connor (returning student): It was much less responsibility the first year there were I mean let me I guess in comparison last year when we got home from the field we were done and this year when we got home there would be other things we would have to do like occasional meetings and reports and photography and making sure things are going smoothly.

Emily (returning student): …my position changed. I went from being a field walker to being a field assistant and especially this year since we were drawing towards the close and there were more site reports to do every day especially once we started doing the pickups, there was a lot more outside of the field work that had to be done.

Student assistants were also allowed to try their hands at leading teams and entering data into the iPads toward the end of the Phase I and the Phase II work.

Under the supervision of a team leader, the students were asked in Phase I to choose

Tracts, navigate the team to the Tract locations, and direct their fellow students on how each Tract should be surveyed. In Phase II the student assistants were allowed to locate the sites and choose the datum point for the site testing. The students found leadership somewhat daunting and the real challenges of keeping track of their fellow students and the site information to be overwhelming at times. Despite the challenges, the student assistants indicated that leading teams was a meaningful part of their field school experience.

Int: what task did you enjoy most [on the project]? Connor (returning student): I think leading the teams a lot, if that's a task.

James (returning student, on what skills he learned at the field school): …being an assistant was the closest thing I had to the position where I was in charge of other people. So, I can suppose a bit of leadership maybe and yeah I think that would be it.

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In the above quotes, Connor notes that being given the chance to lead teams was actually one of the things they enjoyed most about the field school. James considers leadership to be one of the skills that he learned during his experience at the school.

Another student assistant, Emily, describes an opportunity that she and another student had to lead my team as we surveyed tracts in through a town.

Emily (returning student): …this year I did not switch teams a lot, a couple of times and the day I went out with you was actually incredibly beneficial. I had a wonderful experience out with you and Olivia sort of learning the ropes of GIS in the city which is something, because the Field Manager’s team was never in the city…we were out in the crazy lands and it was nice to sort of get more of that sort of urban mapping experience out of it.

Emily and the other student, Olivia, were both eager to try their hand at determining our location using the GIS program on the iPad, deciding where to go next, and filling in information on the iPad. Similarly, my other student assistants, Carla, Sandra, were given the opportunity to lead the team and make judgement calls as to where and how we should set up new Tracts. All of the student assistants experienced some frustration as they worked with the unfamiliar programs on the iPad and as they made decisions for the whole team. Being thrust into a role of responsibility was difficult and nerve-wracking, and all of the students were very self-conscious of the decisions that they made. The students were also eager to be given the opportunity to make decisions, and considered it to be important in their evolution as archaeologists: they were no longer being told what to do, they were being trusted to apply their experience to determine how the team should proceed.

Training students to analyze archaeological material or to make decisions in the Afield was a way of advancing their knowledge past technical training. I note above the technical training was done, for the most part, in the Afield, and the same is true for analytical training.

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Students were not expected to make decisions in hypothetical situations, but to analyze actual materials from the Afield and write site reports or to make decisions for their teams that directed fieldwork. They learned leadership, analysis, and the process of decision-making in the Afield.

Again, their opportunities to lead teams and to write reports train students to learn by doing, an important part of the specific habitus of the archaeologist. The students are also pushed to learn to be adaptable, which was another trait that the professional archaeologists I interviewed identified as essential for archaeological practice. Students were forced to make decisions based on all of the information they had available to them, adapting to each new section of the landscape they encountered. They had to take into account the GIS information available to them, what they knew about the vegetation and geology, and the topography of the land. Each opportunity to make decisions gave them a better base for the next Afield decision they would make. When I interviewed professional archaeologists, many indicated that they loved the process of hands-on learning, a sentiment that I found echoed in the students as they nervously but eagerly took charge in the Afield.

Summary

My observations at the field school and the data from subsequent interviews with the field school participants suggest that the field school is a cultural field of habitus for students of archaeology. The professional archaeologists that I interviewed gave me insight as to the general and specific habitus of the archaeologist, and how the student interest in archaeology was implicitly shaped through training. Analysis of the data collected in relation to the field school helped me understand the way that the general habitus was honed into a more specific professional archaeological habitus. Students were taught to be adaptable workers, able to adjust to different landscapes and new team dynamics. The conditions of the field were physically

172 demanding, requiring the students to withstand high temperatures, dense and scratchy vegetation, and rough terrain. Students learned technical and analytical skills hands-on in the Afield as they worked on a real archaeological survey project. Withstanding the environmental conditions and the physical demands of the work as they learned how to conduct archaeological survey demanded complete commitment from the students. The field school was an immersive experience which where the students physically learned to do the work of archaeology, training their bodies to move through, endure, and interact with the Afield. Thus, a bodily hexis of archaeological work connected the professional knowledge produced in the Afield and the habitus of the professional archaeologist.

As the themes relating the training of the students to the formation of the specific habitus of the archaeologist emerged, I also saw a connection between what I observed and the work of

Bosk (1979), who analyzed the way surgical residents were trained to manage medical failures.

Bosk noted that student errors could be normative, quasi-normative (specific to the each attending physician), technical, or diagnostic (1979). Superordinates of the surgical residents viewed normative and quasi-normative errors as the most serious, as they violated a code of expected behavior. Technical and diagnostic errors could be corrected through practice and experience. At the field school, students were trained to meet normative, quasi-normative, technical, and analytical expectations when conducting Afield work. Normative expectations for the students included obedience, speed, and teamwork. Quasi-normative expectations were dependent on the way that each team leader approached fieldwork. Students were expected to learn technical and analytical or decision-making skills as they worked in the Afield. As in Bosk

(1979), I found that failure to meet normative and quasi-normative expectations were far more serious infractions than failure to meet technical or analytical expectations. Technical or

173 analytical expectations were placed on the students based on their familiarity with the project and the time they had spent in the Afield (i.e. whether they were a new or returning student). It was understood by the staff and the students that skills such as artifact identification or site analysis would be learned through prolonged exposure to the Afield in general and the field school project in particular.

Some of the training in this field school also calls to mind the discussion in the literature on professions regarding the proletarianization of labor. As noted in Chapter 2, there are different levels of status in the hierarchy of archaeological work. The students at the field school were essentially afforded the status of those on the lowest rung of the occupation ladder, the field technicians. Comments from the Field Director noting that too much independent thinking was not to be encouraged and demands on the students to go about their work quickly and without question show the importance of becoming oriented to one’s tasks. I hesitate to describe what I observed as deskilling because while curiosity was at times stifled by the demands of the field school, the Field Director also made it clear that students were to learn the technical and theoretical mechanics of the methodology we employed. Although their practice and was limited to set tasks, the students were able to build upon a specialized professional knowledge base.

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CHAPTER 8

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Discussion on Findings, Implications, Limitations, and Future Research

My research was a multi-method exploration of professionalization in archaeology. In the first phase I conducted participant-observation on an archaeological field school over a seven week period, while in the second I conducted in-depth interviews with the participants of the field school and professional archaeologists. Common themes relating to an orientation toward professional identity from childhood through adulthood emerged from my interviews, while the ethnographic work revealed a process of professionalization through a transformative learning experience. There are three main findings from my data: 1) the professional archaeologists I interviewed had a disposition or general habitus in childhood and young adulthood which led them to archaeology later in life; 2) these same archaeologists have developed and internalized a specific professional habitus, or a set of traits which orient their identities as professional archaeologists; 3) the students in the field school were being trained to meet normative, technical, and analytical expectations related to professional archaeological work. Overall, I find that the field school is a cultural field in which the general habitus of individuals interested in archaeology is honed into the specific habitus of the archaeologist.

The General Habitus of the Archaeologist

The professional archaeologists I interviewed noted how they had been oriented toward archaeology from childhood or young adulthood. There were four traits which stood out among

175 my interview subjects which they connected to their early interest in the discipline: an environmental and/or physical connection with archaeological materials, a romanticized view of archaeology/discovery, a preference for hands-on learning, and intellectual curiosity. Some subjects had grown up in areas with existing archaeological materials in the landscape while others had developed an early fascination with material objects linked to the past. Many of my subjects recalled television, books, magazines, or books which had introduced them to archaeology or the study of the past. My interviewees had developed an image of archaeology as adventurous through these cultural sources. Working outdoors or with objects also fascinated my interview subjects, who were more interested in applied rather than passive learning processes. Subjects also indicated that they were interested in topics beyond archaeology, and remembered having a deep curiosity in a diverse range of topics before becoming professional archaeologists.

I have conceptualized their early disposition as a general habitus which became the foundation for a specific professional habitus they would develop later in life. Habitus is the physical and mental incorporation of the rules of the social structures in which we live. As we are embedded in social structures (economic, political, educational), so too are the rules and regulations of those structures embedded in our minds and bodies. We thus become, through our behaviors and our orientation to the world, the embodiment of the social structures in which we live. The embodied structures are transposable, that is, our dispositions can be changed or honed, by exposure to subsequent physical environments and social structures throughout our lives. (Bourdieu 1977; Bourdieu 1990; Bourdieu and Passeron 2000).

The concept of habitus works well here because my subjects noted their combined physical and mental understanding of archaeology. Interaction with the physical environment or

176 objects shaped their impression of the past or archaeology, thus creating what Bourdieu called

“an implicit pedagogy which can instill a whole cosmology,” or bodily hexis (1990:69). One’s disposition is not just formed mentally, it is formed as the body moves through the environmental and social structures of one’s world (Bourdieu 2000:141). Bodily hexis is integral to understanding how my subjects were oriented to professional archaeology, as it affected all four of the main traits that emerged as elements of their general habitus. Many of my subjects explained that they had grown up in areas where archaeological materials were extant and accessible, thus familiarizing them with the concept of the archaeological record from an early age; being able to find material objects from the human past made discovery tangible and real to my interviewees rather than theoretical and academic. Subjects indicated their preference for outdoor work and play, noting interest and curiosity in their surrounding environment. Others had vivid memories of handling historic or prehistoric materials, giving them a sense of mental connection to the past through physical objects. In recalling their path to professional archaeology, the body was a central feature in the way that my interview subjects were oriented toward archaeology.

The concept of habitus also works well because it is a “system of durable, transposable dispositions” which is both reproduced by and acts to reproduce a social structure (Bourdieu

1990:53). Early habitus sets the stage for later habitus, and the more similarities between the social structures which inculcate general and later specific habitus, the more successful the reorientation will be (Bourdieu and Passeron 2000:44-45). When asked about their early interest in archaeology, my interview subjects would often note their childhood fascination with archaeology and then immediately connected that to the way they had gone on to pursue their interests in school. Archaeology and school had a definite connection in their minds, which is

177 important to note because acquisition of the tertiary degree (usually at the master’s or doctoral level) was the only thing close to professional certification they had. Thus, the educational structure of the school (primary, secondary, and especially tertiary) provided a link between the general habitus and the specific professional identity of my interview subjects.

The Specific Habitus of the Archaeologist

As I analyzed the data from my interviews with professional archaeologists, I began to understand that my subjects were telling me a consistent story about the underlying traits, characteristics, and dispositions of the professional archaeologist. All of my subjects share elements of a specific habitus which shapes who they are as professionals and how they think about archaeology (the past). There are four traits which stand out among my interview subjects: adaptability, commitment, learning by doing, and stoicism. My interview subjects noted the importance of being adaptable and versatile in the field, as knowledge of different methodologies in various environments is essential to archaeological practice. Archaeologists have to be committed to the discipline, and that commitment has to be able to overcome the tedious and monotonous elements of field, lab, and office work. My interview subjects shared a common sentiment that archaeology should be done in the field: classroom learning was important, application of what was learned in the field was essential. Finally, the professional archaeologists I interviewed were adamant that being an archaeologist meant being able to handle tough, physically demanding field conditions. These characteristics emerged from my individual interviews as a collective view of the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist.

Individuals come into new cultural fields not as blank slates but with dispositions to the world already formed as their general habitus. They need not be completely unconscious of their

178 affinity for certain cultural fields, as Bourdieu (2000) notes that individuals may “take advantage of the possibilities offered by a field to express and satisfy their drives and their desires,” (p.

165). Personal history can direct action and behavior toward certain fields, but the structure of the new cultural field reshapes general habitus into a habitus which meets new mental and physical requirements. (Bourdieu 2000:164-165)

As I analyzed the data from my interviews with professional archaeologists, I found that the elements of general habitus formed a foundational disposition that informed the specific habitus of the professional archaeologists. Intellectual curiosity led to methodological and technical adaptability in conducting fieldwork, for example. Maintaining a sense of fascination about the past can help archaeologists stay committed to their profession even when the work is tedious or boring. A desire to work in an outdoor environment and a preference for experiential learning can ease the transition to conducting physically demanding archaeological fieldwork.

We can still see the importance of bodily hexis in the habitus of the archaeologist, as once again my subjects connected the physical interaction with the material record with their professional identity.

Field School: Training to Meet Expectations

I conducted ethnographic participant-observation at a field school on an island in the

Mediterranean over the summer of 2014 and later interviewed a total of 21 of the field school participants. Much to my surprise, the themes that emerged relating to training the students were quite similar to those observed by Bosk (1979) in his ethnographic work on surgical residents in a teaching hospital. Bosk (1979) noted that surgical residents made four types of errors which were mitigated through their training. Normative and quasi-normative errors were mistakes in etiquette or behavior, while technical and judgmental errors were mistakes in procedural surgical

179 competency, analysis of illness, and application of treatment. Normative and quasi-normative mistakes were viewed as the most egregious, requiring the most attention and harshest punishment.

I found that students at the field school were expected to meet normative, quasi- normative, technical, and analytical expectations as they took part in the archaeological fieldwork. The most important behavioral norms for the students were adherence to the hierarchy of command, speed and efficiency in fieldwork, teamwork, and obedience. Normative expectations extended to the students as a whole over the course of the field school, while quasi- normative expectations were the unique behavioral norms associated with each archaeological team leader as they conducted fieldwork. Students were also trained to meet technical standards of conducting a pedestrian survey in a Mediterranean environment, which meant learning to identify the geology, vegetation, and artifact assemblage common to this region of the world.

The more experienced students were expected to develop analytical skills as they interpreted field sites and were given the opportunity to act as team leaders. The most striking similarity to

Bosk’s (1979) work was that failure to meet normative and quasi-normative expectations were regarded as the most serious violations of training and were corrected swiftly and severely.

While aspects of the training bore similarities to Bosk’s (1979) work, I did find differences in the goals of the surgical residency and the archaeological field school. Bosk

(1979) found that the surgical residents were being taught to manage medical failures. The management of failures was one way of regulating behavior among the surgical residents (Bosk

1979). I found that students on the field school were being trained instead to meet certain behavioral standards. It was far less a case of managing error than of preventing it in the first place through the management of student conduct in and out of the field.

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More important are the theoretical differences in the way the field school training relates to the formation of professional identity as compared to Bosk (1979). In Bosk’s (1979) ethnographic work, he found that the professional identity of the students was constructed and managed through the training they received during their residencies. I connect the training that students received in the field to the elements of general and specific habitus noted by my interview subjects, allowing Bourdieu’s work to inform my observations. The archaeological field can be understood from my data to be the cultural field, or the location where general habitus is transposed into specific habitus. The archaeological field is where students develop an understanding of professional archaeological work through bodily hexis by meeting the demands of the fieldwork. The archaeological field reinforces and reproduces the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist, as students are transformed into novice professionals through the fieldwork.

Implications of the Findings

My work enhances our understanding of professional identity and the process of professionalization. In Chapter 2 I reviewed the literature on professions and professionalization. Much of the work in sociology of professions has come out of medical sociology, and very little, with the notable exception of Desmond (2006, 2007) has been done in recent years on professional identity. My study extends the study of professions to archaeologists, and contributes to the body of work on professions in two ways. . First, the analysis of the professionalization and professional identity of archaeologists presented here shows the professionalizing experience of the field school can be the cultural field in which history, body, and identity are brought together in the specific habitus of the professional archaeologist. Second, my research shows that there is an important distinction that can be made

181 between the conscious choice of the individual to come to a profession and the unconscious socialization that occurs within the profession.

The first contribution of my work to the sociological literature, the link between personal history, the body, and the professionalizing experience in the cultural field of the archaeological field school expands on Desmond’s (2008) advice to “historicize the habitus in an effort to externalize what has been internalized and bring to mind what has been forgotten,” (Pp.269; emphasis original). Where my work differs is in its effort to effectively delineate a “before”

(childhood and young adulthood), “during” (field school), and “after” (professional practice) sequence of adopting the habitus of the professional archaeologist. By interviewing professionals and taking part in a field school experience, I was able to separate professional identity and the professionalizing experience and understand their interplay in the process of becoming a professional.

I used a grounded theory methodology in my data collection and analysis, but, through the process of theoretical sampling, found emerging themes that conceptually aligned with existing theory. I found that Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, bodily hexis, and field can be very useful tools in the study of professional identity, and can help separate professional identity from professional membership or from definitional aspects of professions. His concepts allowed me understand the way my subjects saw themselves, and how they had considered archaeology from childhood into adulthood. What I found was that they were oriented toward archaeology as a way of life, as a way of looking at the world, from an early age. They then went through schooling and had transformative field experiences that further gave them a specific professional archaeological identity at the same time they were learning actual archaeological practice.

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The applicability of Bosk (1979) to my research was unexpected and exciting. Thematic similarities regarding normative, quasi-normative, technical, and judgmental/analytical standards emerged between the training of the field school students I observed and the surgical residents that Bosk (1979) observed. The parallels between Bosk’s work and my own leads me to wonder if there are common behavioral themes in professionalizing experiences with similar features to those studied by Bosk (1979) and myself (i.e. the teaching hospital and the archaeological field school). The implication is that elements of normative, quasi-normative, technical, and judgmental expectations may be a common feature of professionalization which allow for standardization of professional behavior. Even more intriguing is the possibility that Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, bodily hexis, and field may serve to explain how training for a standardization of behavior leads to the adoption of a professional identity. My worked showed that the general disposition of the students on the field school primed them to accept the expectations placed on them, and that the training itself led to a transposition of that general habitus into a more specific professional archaeological habitus.

The second contribution of my work to the literature on professions deals with occupational selection, conscious choice, and unconscious socialization. According to the literature, people have some level of conscious choice in their work but may be constrained by larger social forces (e.g. factors such as race, gender, or socioeconomic class may limit occupational opportunities). Individuals able to reorient themselves to the needs and demands of their work organizations are then able to maintain careers as they take on a “professional conscience and solidarity,” (Hughes 1958:33). Desmond, by historically contextualizing the attitudes and dispositions of wildland firefighters, showed how individuals can be primed through general habitus to accept a specific professional habitus. He explained their willingness

183 to become wildland firefighters as an illusio of self-determinacy, or “an acceptance of and investment in the organizational common sense of the Forest Service,” (Desmond 2008:194). In the traditional view of occupational selection, then, there is an element of conscious knowledge that coming into a profession will require an acceptance of a new set of rules or behaviors.

Bourdieu (2000) notes that while we can come to new cultural fields based on our wants and desires (i.e. consciously), our dispositions toward those new fields are formed “through a whole series of imperceptible transactions, half-conscious compromises, and psychological operations…socially encouraged, supported, channeled, and even organized,” (Pp.165). I found that while people consciously chose to pursue archaeology, they did not make an explicit choice to adopt the elements of habitus attached to the professional identity of the archaeologist. In other words, they were not aware of the global set of dispositions they would need to accept: willingness to become adaptable workers, to accept difficult field conditions, to be experiential learners, or to commit themselves to the less glamorous aspects of archaeological work. They were instead able to unconsciously accept and reorient their attitudes toward work and expectations of archaeology because they had been unconsciously primed to do so in early childhood and/or young adulthood. Occupational selection, in the case of my subjects, can be seen as a conscious desire that is implicitly directed through professionalizing experiences into a career path.

Limitations of the Study

Because I conducted qualitative research on a limited subject pool of professional archaeologists and field school participants, the results I obtained should not be taken as generalizable to a wider population of professional archaeologists or even students of archaeology. I only looked at one kind of professionalizing experience, an archaeological field

184 school, but it should not be supposed that field school is the only professionalizing experience in which archaeologists participate. The disposition of the student interested in archaeology may be transformed via other mechanisms in other venues, such as the lab or the classroom.

There are also many kinds of field schools, ranging from local excavations which allow students to live at home and travel to the site on a daily basis to the more immersive field school lasting several weeks in a foreign country. All field schools are unique experiences, which affects the generalizability of any ethnographic work conducted within them. Field schools may employ any number of methods, such as pedestrian survey (like the one in which I participated), geophysical survey, or full-scale excavation. The field school in which I participated might actually be more accurately termed a field experience even though it was presented as a field school to the students. The primary purpose of the fieldwork was to complete an academic archaeological project rather than act solely as an educational training opportunity for the students. The goals of this field experience were different from more common field schools which are educationally-oriented and would allow students to work at a wider range of archaeological tasks or take on individual research projects. The differences in the characteristics, methods, and environment of field schools or field experiences may affect the way that students are trained or result in an emphasis on a different set of normative, technical, and analytical expectations.

My interview subjects present another limitation to my study. The professional archaeologists I interviewed were limited to individuals practicing in or near the state of Ohio. I chose to control for regional variation because I wanted individuals familiar with or currently working within the same political and economic framework. My professional archaeologist interview pool was also largely male (66%), largely employed full-time, and entirely white.

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Given its overall small size to begin with, I was unable to meaningfully explore issues of gender, class, or race. The students participating in the field school were undergraduate students, which is important because acquisition of the tertiary master’s or doctoral degree is considered the certification for the professional archaeologist. It would have been useful to have been able to interview master’s or doctoral students to get a better picture of professional identity at that critical point in the process of becoming an archaeologist.

An important caveat to my research involves my use of grounded theory. I used a grounded theory approach as a broad theoretical orientation which informed by research, but I did not generate new theory through my work. A grounded theory methodology was therefore not fully realized in my work. Through theoretical sampling of the data I collected, I recognized links with existing sociological theory and rather than continue my analysis through to unique theory generation I chose instead to explore those links. Miller (2000) notes that while many researchers claim to use a grounded theory methodology, too often they do not actually develop theory (Pp.400). “Subsequently,” he tells us, “much recent work suffers from what Lofland

(1970) called analytic interruptus, a failure to follow through and complete the research act,”

(Miller 2000:400; emphasis original). My results have been fruitful and make contributions to the sociological literature on professions, but further work can yet be done with the data I have collected. It can be used to complete the journey through grounded theory development, incorporating my findings here into a broader understanding of the process through which individuals become archaeologists and how they practice their work.

I point out some of the possible implications from my work above for the sociological study of professions, but it should be noted that research on other professionals and in other professionalization experiences would be needed to build a more complete theoretical

186 understanding of how general habitus is transformed into specific professional habitus. My research fits into the existing body of knowledge on professions and professionalization but it should not be viewed as a guideline for directing qualitative work on the subject. The limitations in subject pool and the specificity of the professionalizing experience yielded data specific to the experiences of one group of archaeological students and professionals. While the data were conceptually productive and theoretically intriguing, they are one set of experiences in a vast milieu of professional lives.

Future Research

The above discussion on the implications of my work for future research and the limitations of the present study (particularly the caveat on my use of grounded theory methodology) provide ideas for future work. It would be useful to conduct a grounded theory study on master’s and/or doctoral level students in archaeology to develop a better understanding of professional identity at a more advanced stage in the professionalization process. My work examined the professional identity of individuals already practicing archaeology and professionalization at the undergraduate level. The experience of the advanced students of archaeology would give us insight into professionalization in higher tertiary education. How does it build on what was learned at the undergraduate level? How is professional identity formed as one progresses through the degree? How do students expect to leverage their degree into professional status as they navigate the job market? There are many possible research questions that could be asked of master’s or doctoral students of archaeology, and all of them would further our understanding of archaeology as a profession.

One of the intriguing characteristics of my subject pool was its lack of racial diversity.

Further research is needed to understand whether my subject pool was representative of the

187 population of professional archaeologists. If it is, then we need to understand the role that race plays in professional archaeology. Why are so few people of color becoming professional archaeologists? Although I noted general racial disparity in the life, physical, and social sciences in Chapter 4, my interview pools leaves me wondering if there is truly almost no racial diversity specifically in archaeology, and if so, what this means for the way that archaeology is taught and practiced. Do we inherently foster professional racial exclusion?

Finally, one last possibility for future research lies in the delineation of the professional archaeologist from the non-professional enthusiast or avocations archaeologist. Although I did not explore the subject in this dissertation, my subjects talked at length about the relationship between the professional archaeologists and the avocational archaeologists. The subject of archaeology fascinates many, and some individuals search for and collect archaeological materials despite having no formal archaeological education or training. The avocationalists range from looters who sell artifacts to individuals who work with professional archaeologists and even publish articles on sites and finds. Many of the professional archaeologists I interviewed noted that there is a fine line between the avocational and the professional. I believe it would be worthwhile to gain a better understanding of what drives the avocational archaeologists, and compare that to the disposition of the professional archaeologist. Is the difference technical and theoretical, resulting from a lack of formal training, or is there a significant difference in how they internalize their identity as individuals who study the archaeological record? The answer to the question would help us understand professional identity in a profession where membership criteria are relatively lenient.

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Final Thoughts

The above study has been an exploration of the ways that individuals become professional archaeologists. As a professional archaeologist, I have gained a greater understanding of how and why I became part of the profession. I saw myself reflected in many of the comments made by my interview subjects, and in many of the actions of the students on the field school. For the first time, I stood outside of my archaeological self and saw some of the workings of a system in which I am embedded. As a sociologist, I gained an appreciation for the richness of ethnographic and interview data, and for the individuals who so openly shared their experiences so that I might better understand social phenomena. Out of so many unique recollections, histories, opinions, and accounts emerged a coherent narrative on becoming a professional archaeologist. It is my hope that other sociologists will find my analysis useful and compelling, and that other archaeologists will find my work personally meaningful.

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APPENDIX A

GLOSSARY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL TERMS

Terms: A.D. "Abbreviation for the term Anno Domini Nostri Jesu Christi (or simply Anno Domini) which means ""in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ."" Years are counted from the traditionally recognized year of the birth of Jesus. In academic, historical, and archaeological circles, A.D. is generally replaced by the term Common Era (C.E.)." (AIA) Apotheke In Classical archaeology, a facility for processing and storing artifacts. Artifact any object made, modified, or used by people (wvculture.org/shop/glossary.html) Assemblage An associated set of contemporary artefacts that can be considered as a single unit for record and analysis; all of the artefacts found at a site, including the sum of all sub‐ assemblages at the site. (Oxford Concise Dictionary of Archaeology) Association Objects found near one another in the same context are said to be in association. (AIA) Attribute a characteristic or property of an object, such as weight, size, or color. (wvculture.org/shop/glossary.html) Azimuth A compass bearing taken from true north. An azimuth of 90 degrees is due east, 180 degrees due south, etc. (Oxford Concise Dictionary of Archaeology) B.C. Abbreviation for the term Before Christ. Years are counted back from the traditionally recognized year of Christ's birth. In academic, historical, and archaeological circles, this term is now generally replaced by Before Common Era (B.C.E.). (AIA) B.C.E. Before Common Era. See B.C. (AIA) B.P. Before Present; used in age determination instead of B.C. or B.C.E. "Present" is academically defined as the year 1950 (the year when this term was invented). (AIA) C.E. Common Era. See A.D. (AIA) Cardinal Collective term for the four primary directions: North, South, East, West. (AIA) Directions Ceramic Objects, often pottery, made of fired or baked clay. (AIA)

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Chert A fine-grained sedimentary rock, similar to flint, that is white, pinkish, brown, gray, or blue-gray in color. In antiquity, chert was one of the universally preferred materials for making stone tools (obsidian was another). (AIA) Context The position and associations of an artifact, feature, or archaeological find in space and time. Noting where the artifact was found and what was around it assists archaeologists in determining chronology and interpreting function and significance. Loss of context strips an artifact of meaning and makes it more difficult (sometimes, impossible) to determine function. (AIA) Datum point A specific, fixed location from which all measurements on a site are made or to which they are calibrated. (AIA) Debitage Small pieces of stone debris that break off during the manufacturing of stone tools. These are usually considered waste and are a by-product of production. (AIA) Diagnostic/ an item that is indicative of a particular time period and/or cultural group. diagnostic (wvculture.org/shop/glossary.html) artifact Excavation The digging up and recording of archaeological sites, including uncovering and recording the provenience, context, and three-dimensional location of archaeological finds. (AIA) Fabric Term used to describe the composition of the clay used in the manufacture of a ceramic pot or artifact; it includes temper, texture, hardness, and other characteristics. (AIA) Feature Any physical structure or element, such as a wall, post hole, pit, or floor, that is made or altered by humans but (unlike an artifact) is not portable and cannot be removed from a site. (AIA) Field notes Detailed, written accounts of archaeological research, excavation, and interpretation made while in the field at an ongoing project. (AIA) Flake A piece of stone removed from a core for use as a tool or as debitage. (AIA) Grid A network of squares. A site or large area of excavation is generally marked off into square units before digging begins. (AIA) Ground- An instrument used to find sub-surface anomalies (features) by recording differential penetrating reflection of radar pulses. (AIA) radar in situ Anything in its natural or original position or place is said to be in situ. (AIA) Lithic Of or pertaining to stone. (AIA) Material Physical objects and structures from the past. (AIA) culture Matrix The physical material (often dirt) in which archaeological objects are located. (AIA)

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Obsidian A glassy, volcanic rock, often black in color, was used in ancient times to produce extremely sharp blades. Obsidian blades can have an edge so sharp that they have been successfully used as scalpels in heart and eye surgery. (AIA) Phase I, Phase Stages of archaeological investigation, ranging from archaeological site identification in II, Phase III Phase I to evaluative testing in Phase II to data recovery in Phase III (OHPO Guidelines 1994:18-20). Provenience The three-dimensional context (including geographical location) of an archaeological find, giving information about its function and date. (AIA) Reconnaissanc A method of gathering data, often associated with surface surveys, in which e archaeological remains are systematically identified and plotted on a map. (AIA) Remote Non-intrusive survey methods used to find archaeological sites; these may include aerial sensing reconnaissance and geophysical techniques such as magnetometry, radar, resistivity, and conductivity. (AIA) Sherd/pot The term used for a piece of broken pottery from an archaeological context. Also called a sherd shard. (AIA) Significance Criteria or standards by which archaeological materials are evaluated; the status conferred on archaeological materials as a result of said evaluation (Moratto and Kelly 1976:193). At the federal level in the United States, significance is judged based on the National Register of Historic Places Criteria for Evaluation. Site Any place where human material remains are found; an area of human activity represented by material culture. (AIA) Slag Partly vitrified non‐metal residue and waste material left behind after the smelting of a metal ore or in glass‐making. (Oxford Concise Dictionary of Archaeology) Square In archaeology, this term refers to subdivisions of a site or a larger excavation unit. The subdivisions are small regular units often square or rectangular in shape. A continuous network of squares is called a grid. (AIA) Surface The process of searching for archaeological remains by physically examining the Survey landscape, usually on foot. There are many different types of survey techniques. See Ground Reconaissance. (AIA) Tract An area of land to be archaeologically surveyed. May be defined by natural or manmade features in the landscape or may be determined based on size (i.e. 100 meters in length). Similar to a square in that it is a subdivision of a larger site, but may be larger and irregular in shape.

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APPENDIX B

CONSENT FORMS

1. Interview consent, hard copy Becoming an Archaeologist: Professionalization in the Applied Sciences

Informed Consent Form

Introduction This research is about how students in the applied social science of archaeology are being prepared for the realities of being a professional archaeologist.

Procedures The study is being conducted by Megan Shaeffer, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Kent State University in Ohio. The researcher will conduct an interview to obtain in-depth information about experiences in being professionalized as an archaeologist. These interviews may last 1-2 hours and, with your permission, will be audio or video recorded.

Risks/Discomforts Risks are minimal for involvement in all of the above procedures. Participants may feel uneasy when asked personal questions pertaining to their profession or professionalization experiences.

Benefits There are no direct benefits for participants. However, it is hoped that through your participation, researchers will learn more about ways that the scientific disciplines can be more effective in the instruction of college students into the realities of applied science professions.

Confidentiality All data obtained from participants will be kept confidential within the limits of the law. Research participants will not be identified in any publication or presentation of research results. Any identifying information will be kept in a secure location and only the researchers will have access to the data. Additionally, data from all procedures will be concealed and no one other that the primary investigators listed below will have access to them.

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Your research information may, in certain circumstances, be disclosed to the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which oversees research at Kent State University, or to certain federal agencies.

Confidentiality may not be maintained if you indicate that you may do harm to yourself or others.

Participation Participation in this research study is completely voluntary. You have the right to decline to answer any questions, withdraw at any time, or refuse to participate entirely without any academic or professional repercussions. If you desire to withdraw, please notify the principal investigator at this email: [email protected]. Or, if you prefer, inform the principal investigator at any time during the study.

Questions about the Research If you have questions regarding this study, you may speak directly to the researcher, Megan Shaeffer, or contact her at [email protected].

Questions about your Rights as Research Participants If you have questions you do not feel comfortable asking the researcher, you may contact Dr. Susan Roxburgh at 330 672-3125 or at [email protected]. You may also contact the Compliance Manager of Kent State University's Institutional Review Board, Paulette Washko, at 330 672-2704 or [email protected].

Consent Statement and Signature I have read this consent form and have had the opportunity to have my questions answered to my satisfaction. I voluntarily agree to participate in this study. I understand that a copy of this consent will be provided to me for future reference.

______Participant Signature Date

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2. Interview consent, script

Becoming an Archaeologist: Professionalization in the Applied Sciences

Informed Consent Form

[Introduction] My name is Megan Shaeffer, and I’m a Ph.D. student at Kent State University in Ohio. I’m conducting research on how students in the applied social science of archaeology are being prepared for the realities of being a professional archaeologist.

[Procedure] If you agree to participate in the research, I will ask you questions about your experiences of being professionalized in archaeology. The interview should take 1-2 hours. If it’s all right with you, I would like to [audio/video] record the interview.

[Risks] The risks associated with my research are minimal. You may feel some unease when asked personal questions pertaining to your profession or your professionalization experiences.

[Benefits] While there is no direct benefit to participating, I hope that through this research we will learn more about ways that the scientific disciplines can be more effective in the instruction of college students into the realities of applied science professions.

[Confidentiality] All data obtained from participants will be kept confidential within the limits of the law. Research participants will not be identified in any publication or presentation of research results. Any identifying information will be kept in a secure location and only the researchers will have access to the data. Additionally, data from all procedures will be concealed and no one other that the primary investigators listed below will have access to them.

Your research information may, in certain circumstances, be disclosed to the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which oversees research at Kent State University, or to certain federal agencies.

Confidentiality may not be maintained if you indicate that you may do harm to yourself or others.

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[Participation] Participation in this research study is completely voluntary. You have the right to decline to answer any questions, withdraw at any time, or refuse to participate entirely without any academic or professional repercussions. If you want to skip a question or not talk about a certain subject, please let me know and we will skip it and move on. If you wish to withdraw from the research, please let me know at any time during the interview or after its completion.

[Questions about the Research] Do you have any questions for me about the research or the interviews?

If you have questions regarding this research at any time please feel free to ask. You may also contact me at [email protected].

[Questions about your Rights as Research Participants] If you have questions you do not feel comfortable asking me, you may contact Dr. Susan Roxburgh at 330 672-3125 or at [email protected]. You may also contact the Compliance Manager of Kent State University's Institutional Review Board, Paulette Washko, at 330 672- 2704 or [email protected].

A hard copy or email copy of the contact information can be provided to you.

Would you like to take part in the research interview? May I begin the interview?

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3. Informational sheet, interviews

Becoming an Archaeologist: Professionalization in the Applied Sciences Information Sheet

Researcher: Megan Shaeffer, M.A. Department of Sociology Kent State University [email protected]

Research question: My research asks how students in the applied social science of archaeology are being prepared for the realities of being professional archaeologists.

Why is it important? While my research will be specific to archaeology, its implications reach beyond the discipline. Archaeology is one of a number of applied sciences which attracts students who want to become professional scientists. Many, however, are unaware of the complexities of being professional scientists. The job market specific to their science, the political or economic factors that influence the construction of scientific knowledge and job opportunities, and training for application of scientific knowledge in the field are all factors that play into the students’ professional development. Understanding the interplay of the factors that affect the development of students into practicing scientists will highlight areas of disconnect between the instructional setting of the university and the professional setting of the work world.

Research Procedures: I will be conducting an interview to obtain in-depth information about your experiences in being professionalized as an archaeologist. The interviews may last 1-2 hours and, with permission of the participant, will be audio or video recorded.

Risks/Discomforts: Risks are minimal for involvement in all of the above procedures. Participants may feel uneasy when asked personal questions pertaining to their profession or professionalization experiences.

Confidentiality All data obtained from participants will be kept confidential within the limits of the law. Research participants will not be identified in any publication or presentation of research results. Any identifying information will be kept in a secure location and only the researchers, myself and my advisor Dr. Susan Roxburgh, will have access to the data.

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Your research information may, in certain circumstances, be disclosed to the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which oversees research at Kent State University, or to certain federal agencies. Confidentiality may not be maintained if you indicate that you may do harm to yourself or others.

Questions about the Research If you have questions regarding this study, you may speak directly to me or contact me at [email protected].

Questions about your Rights as Research Participants If you have questions you do not feel comfortable asking me, you may contact my advisor Dr. Susan Roxburgh at 330 672-3125 or at [email protected]. You may also contact the Compliance Manager of Kent State University's Institutional Review Board, Paulette Washko, at 330 672-2704 or [email protected].

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4. Informed consent, field school

Becoming an Archaeologist: Professionalization in the Applied Sciences Informed Consent Form

Introduction This research is about how students in the applied social science of archaeology are being prepared for the realities of being a professional archaeologist.

Procedures The study is being conducted by Megan Shaeffer, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Kent State University in Ohio. Ms. Shaeffer will be an archaeological team leader on the Island Archaeological Survey Project (IASP) project.

There will be two procedures in the research project: 1. The researcher will participate in the field school. During this participation, she will observe and take notes on the process of archaeological instruction. She may, during the course of normal conversation and interaction, ask students clarify or expand on information they have given her. 2. After the field school, the researcher will interview the individuals who took part in IASP to get more in-depth information about their experiences in the field school. These interviews may last 1-2 hours and, with permission of the participant, will be audio or video recorded.

Risks/Discomforts Risks are minimal for involvement in all of the above procedures. Students may feel some discomfort in being observed by a researcher in the field, or they may feel uneasy when asked personal questions pertaining to their future profession.

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Your research information may, in certain circumstances, be disclosed to the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which oversees research at Kent State University, or to certain federal agencies.

Confidentiality may not be maintained if you indicate that you may do harm to yourself or others or that you yourself are in danger of harm. Part of Ms. Shaeffer’s job as an archaeological team leader—and as an ethical sociological researcher—is to ensure the safety of the students to the best of her ability. Should a student reveal information that they may harm themselves or others or that they themselves are being harmed, Ms. Shaeffer will inform the student that confidentiality must be broken for their safety.

Participation Participation in this research study is completely voluntary. You may choose to participate in any or all of the research procedures listed above (observation during field school, Facebook observation, or interview). You have the right to withdraw at any time or refuse to participate entirely without jeopardy to your academic status, GPA or standing with your university. If you desire to withdraw, please notify the principal investigator at this email: [email protected]. Or, if you prefer, inform the principal investigator at any time during the study.

Questions about the Research If you have questions regarding this study, you may speak directly to the researcher, Megan Shaeffer, or contact her at [email protected].

______to be observed/informally interviewed during the IASP project

______to be interviewed after the IASP project

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I understand that a copy of this consent can be provided to me for future reference.

______Participant Signature Print Name Date

If you do NOT wish to participate in the study, please check the following and sign:

______I do NOT consent to be part of this study

______Signature Print Name Date

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5. Information sheet, field school

Becoming an Archaeologist: Professionalization in the Applied Sciences Information Sheet

Researcher: Megan Shaeffer, M.A. Department of Sociology Kent State University [email protected]

Research question: My research asks how students in the applied social science of archaeology are being prepared for the realities of being professional archaeologists.

Research Procedures: 1. I will be participating in the Island Archaeological Survey Project (IASP). During this participation, I will observe and take notes on the process of archaeological instruction. I may, during the course of normal conversation and interaction, ask students clarify or expand on information they have given me.

2. After the field school, I will interview the individuals who took part in IASP to get more in- depth information about their experiences. These interviews may last 1-2 hours and, with permission of the participant, will be audio or video recorded.

Risks/Discomforts: Risks are minimal for involvement in all of the above procedures. Students may feel some discomfort in being observed by a researcher in the field, or they may feel uneasy when asked personal questions pertaining to their future profession.

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Confidentiality All data obtained from participants will be kept confidential within the limits of the law. Research participants will not be identified in any publication or presentation of research results. Any identifying information will be kept in a secure location and only the researchers, myself and my advisor Dr. Susan Roxburgh, will have access to the data.

Your research information may, in certain circumstances, be disclosed to the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which oversees research at Kent State University, or to certain federal agencies.

Questions about the Research If you have questions regarding this study, you may speak directly to me or contact me at [email protected].

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APPENDIX C

INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

Interview Guide:

The subjects covered in the interviews are listed below. Interview questions varied somewhat depending on the profession of the participant and/or his/her status (undergraduate, graduate student, part-time worker, full-time archaeologist, etc.). The IASP participants were asked an additional set of questions based on their experiences with the field school. It should be noted that the interview schedule served as a guide to generate conversation about various subjects rather than as a rigid questionnaire.

Introductory information:

What got you interested in archaeology?

How long have you been an archaeologist/practiced archaeology/studied archaeology?

When did you first feel like a “real” archaeologist? -or- When do you think you will feel like a “real” archaeologist?

Why do you think archaeology is important?

What do you like best about archaeology?

What don’t you like about archaeology?

IASP participants:

Please tell me about your experiences in the IASP project.

Why did you decide to participate in IASP?

What archaeological skills did you learn during IASP?

What did you learn about the profession of archaeology during IASP?

What surprised you most about what you learned about archaeology during IASP?

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Do you like archaeology more or less after having conducted field work?

What did you like best about the field work?

What did you like least about the field work?

Was there anything you thought you would learn about and did not?

After participating in IASP, are you more or less likely to pursue a career in archaeology?

Learning archaeology: the college experience

Current students:

What kind of job are you going to look for when you leave the university?

What do you think the job market is like right now for archaeologists?

Do you want to or feel the need to further your higher education? Why or why not? If you are going further in your education, what are your plans?

What do you think would be the worst thing about being an archaeologist?

What do you think would be the best thing about being an archaeologist?

What kind of archaeological career are you interested in? Why?

Are there any archaeological careers that you would like to avoid? Why?

What do you think the ethical obligations are for archaeologists?

What would you do if asked to do something you felt was not archaeologically ethical?

How are you paying for your degree?

What are your worries, fears, hopes regarding archaeology and your future?

Do you feel you are being well-prepared to become an archaeologist?

Past Students:

How did you learn archaeology?

What did you learn in the classroom about archaeology when you were an undergraduate? Graduate?

What kind of field experience did you have in college as an undergraduate? Graduate?

What kind of lab/curating experience did you have in college as an undergraduate? Graduate?

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After getting your undergraduate degree, what did you do?

After getting your graduate degree, what did you do?

Upon leaving college, what did you think being an archaeologist was all about? Has that changed?

Working as an archaeologist:

Please tell me about your job. What are your primary responsibilities as an archaeologist?

What archaeological tasks do you particularly like in your present job?

What archaeological tasks do you not enjoy in your present job?

What tasks did you learn working in the profession that you didn’t learn in school?

What was the job market like when you were looking for work as an archaeologist?

Do you feel like you apply what you learned in the classroom/lab/field school in your job?

Political economy:

In your experience, do politics or the economy play a part in how archaeology is practiced in your job?

Do they play a part in the way archaeology in general is practiced in academia? CRM work? How so, or why not?

How do cultural trends like the Native American movement to repatriate graves and grave goods affect professional archaeology?

Were you aware of how politics/economy/cultural trends affected archaeology when you became an archaeologist?

What are the most pressing ethical questions in archaeology, in your opinion?

Have you ever been asked to do anything you felt was against your ethics as an archaeologist? Please tell me about that.

How do your family/friends perceive archaeology?

How do you think the public perceives archaeology and archaeologists?

What kinds of laws or regulations are you aware of that govern archaeological remains or the profession of archaeology?

Should all archaeological remains be preserved and catalogued?

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What should be done with archaeological materials once they have been collected/excavated/researched?

How are/should archaeological remains be protected?

Should all archaeological materials be protected equally? Why or why not?

Professionalization:

How do you think archaeology is best learned?

What skills do you think are imperative to being an archaeologist?

Do you think people are professionalized adequately into the profession?

Are there associations or organizations that oversee professional development?

Have you undergone any kind of training or taken any prequalification courses for archaeology?

Are you required in your job to have any specific credentials or training to conduct archaeology?

What are some of the norms of being an archaeologist?

Is there an ethical standard for conducting archaeological work in your profession?

Archaeological community:

Do you communicate with other archaeologists?

Do you work with other archaeologists?

Do you feel a sense of community with other archaeologists?

Do you belong to any groups, societies, or associations for archaeologists? Please tell me about those.

Do you attend any archaeological association or society meetings, conferences, or events? Please tell me about those.

Are there divisions within the profession? What are those divisions, in your experience/opinion?

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