How many archaeologists are there in the US? I received a request for this information from a reader.
Surprisingly, it is a very difficult to track down an answer to this question. Unlike the UK, Japan, Australia, and most of Europe there has yet to be any sort of project like Profiling the Profession to tell us. Though there is talk of running a Discovering the Archaeologists of the Americas project to find this information out but that may not happen for a while, or at all. Until then, there has been some work done by others and myself to track these numbers down. Here is a quick run down of the number of archaeologists we think are working in the US.
Never Trust the BLS
A lot of people like to cite the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which depending on the year, give numbers ranging from 6-7,000 archaeologists AND anthropologists. Considering that the American Anthropological Association has 10,000+ anthropologists and the Society of American Archaeologists has 7000+ archaeologists, (there is very little overlap between these two organizations, AAA has roughly a 1000 members in its archaeology section), it would seem that these numbers don’t add up. Not to bore you with the details but the BLS numbers are off because of how they sample numbers. Because there are so few archaeologists and anthropologists, relative to other occupations, the BLS has trouble accurately capturing them.
Federal Archaeologists
It is relatively easy to track the number of archaeologists working for the US government as the Feds keeps track of their employees. As far as I can tell the first person to use these numbers was Childs (2009) in his brief SAA article. Although he only uses the 0193 archaeologists designation and does not include the 0102 technician positions. I describe the difference between the two positions in this post and after looking at the numbers I found about 1200 permanent and 350 seasonal positions in 2013. Which means the federal government employees roughly 1550 people to undertake archaeological work.
Academic Archaeologists
In 2006 there was a snapshot survey by the SAA to try to determine the number professional archaeologists in the US. I have not personally seen this report, nor can I find it online but others cite it (the report is Snow 2006). That survey puts academic archaeologists at around 1500. I did a hand count of academics based off of University websites and came up with a number of 1636, as explained in this post. My numbers include adjuncts and archaeologists who teach out side traditional departments e.g. Anthropology and Archaeology. I would say the that there are roughly 1600 academic archaeologists in the US.
State and Tribal Archaeologists
Altschul and Patterson (2010) have run rough estimations of the number archaeologists working for SHPOs (State Historical Preservation Offices) and THPOS (Tribal Historical Preservation Offices), about 850. Actually they don’t. They estimate the number of CRM workers. Archaeologists are CRM workers but not all CRM workers are archaeologists e.g. archivists, historians, etc. Based on their estimate of public sector archaeologist and CRMers I have converted their CRM SHPO and THPOS numbers, 1430, to archaeologists i.e 850. They got those CRM numbers by sampling a few SHPOS and THPOs then multiplying the averages by the rest of the offices.
Private Sector CRM Archaeologists
Altschul and Pattrnson also made several estimations of the number of private sector archaeologists. One was based on an estimation that for every $100,000 spent on CRM a person is employed. Another was based on a previous observation that for every public sector employed archaeologists there are three private sector archaeologists. Both came up with around 7,350 archaeologists in the private sector. Sarah Herr and Chris Dore did some work and presented it at the 2009 SAA conference, in which they found that there was 1,624 listed CRM firms in the US (WV, NY, Mass, did not have lists and so the number is actually higher). It is quite conceivable that there are at least 7,000+ private sector archaeologists employed by 1600+ CRM firms (and an unknown number of non-CRM firms that employ archaeologists too).
When is a Archaeologist actually a Archaeologist?
Here is something I said when I was examining the number of Federal Archaeologists-
“Archaeologists are employed in two primary positions in the US Federal Government to undertake archaeological related work. I say primary because we archaeologists tend to be flexible in the sort of employment we carry out. An archaeologist might as easily be employed as an architectural historian, a curator, a researcher, an anthropologist, and so forth. I was at one point employed by the Federal Government as a Museum Aid working on the Chaco Canyon and related collections. All of us employed, at that time, in the collections had degrees in archaeology and considered ourselves archaeologists though we were employed as collections specialists. At best these numbers only represent those with the title of archaeologists”
Basically, all of these numbers are based are arbitrary definitions and may not represent what people actually consider themselves as, archaeologist or not.
Totals
Except for the Federal archaeologists and my personal count of academics these estimates all occurred pre-2008 crash. Which means we have no idea how the recession has affected the number of archaeologists employed. Work has since bounced back since the recession ended so it is possible that the numbers are back up to the pre-recession levels. Until there is a comprehensive study this is how many archaeologists we think, in some cases know, are in the US:
Academic- 1630+ (2012)
Federal- 1550 (2013)
States- 850 (2008)
CRM private sector- 7,000 (2008)
Total 11,030? (give or take those in the private sector and working for states currently)
References
Altschul and Patterson 2010 Trends in Employment and Training in American Archaeology. In Voices in American Archaeology. Edited by Wendy Ashmore, Dorothy T. Lippert, and Barbara J. Mills ISBN No. 978-0-932839-39-8
Childs, S. Terry 2009 Commentary. The SAA Archaeological Record (January 2009) Volume 9 (1), 37-39. http://www.saa.org/Portals/0/SAA/Publications/thesaaarchrec/Jan09.pdf
Herr, Sarah and Dore, Christopher D. 2009. Measuring CRM. Presented at the 74th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Atlanta, GA.
Snow, Dean 2006 Snapshot Survey to Estimate Number of Professional Archaeologists in the United States. Report Submitted to Board of Directors, SAA. Wahsington D.C.
Doug's Archaeology 
teesarchsoc
June 18, 2014
Even as an estimate, # Archaeologists per capita and per GDP might be interesting? And then to watch the dynamic into, through and out of a recession. And then to model attrition/retention.staff-churn and salaries through the dynamic. Is the US as sensitive to developer-led (building in the environment) engagements as UK and EU? Forgive if this is in prior posts.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
June 18, 2014
Altschul and Patterson did this a little in their paper, they look at money spent and employment. However, it is a snap shot and not over different years. Private sector is just as sensitive to developer-let work as UK and EU. While the laws are different and there is variation it how it works out it is essentially a polluter pays model just like most other places.
dover1952
June 20, 2014
I have a couple of additional thoughts here:
1) You gave it a “really good go” in your accounting, considering the nature of the data you had to work with. One category of archaeologists appears to have been left out. I would call this category:
“Nonworking Archaeologists Who Are Working at Archaeology”
What in the heck am I talking about? Well, an unknown number of academically trained archaeologists do archaeology just for fun—but do not get paid for it. At this juncture, you will no doubt leap to the conclusion that I am talking about those poor archaeologists who would like to be working for money—but cannot find a job—so they are volunteering as free archeologists. That is NOT who I am talking about.
Some American archaeologists are no doubt well off financially because they come from wealthy families and are free to spend time in archaeological research without worrying about whether it will pay for their next meal. Other archaeologists are retired from the workaday world, but they continue doing archaeological research and writing just for fun during their retirement years. I know several of those folks, and I am well on my way to being one of them. I suspect there are a lot more of these folks than one might imagine. Some people call them “Independent Archaeological Researchers.”
2) I think it would be both fun and instructive to look at comprehensive academic enrollment in American colleges and universities with regard to the total numbers of undergraduate students and graduate students who are planning to be professional archaeologists. How many students do the 1,630+ academic archaeologists have to “snooker” into believing they have a realistic shot at a decent archaeological job someday so their professors can stay employed at the university—50,000, 100,000, 200,000, 300,000? Yes, I think the really hard moral questions are the most fascinating ones.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
June 20, 2014
1. Yes that is a group that would be great to count. The only problem I have had is finding them to count.
2.We do have those numbers- roughly. About 10,000 undergrads each year graduate in Anthropology of which about 25% are archaeologists. Multiple that by 4-5 years and we have 10-12,000 undergrads. About 1000+ MA and 1000+ PhD students can be added to the mix too, that is enrolled yearly. Though how many are planning to be archaeologists, that is harder to know but it gives us a ball park to work with.
Some posts from a few years ago on the topic- https://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/anthropology-gradautes-1948-2009/
https://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/70000-people-in-the-us-have-archaeology-based-degrees/
dover1952
June 20, 2014
Yes. They would be hard to find because no one counts them—as far as I know. I still bet many, many of them are out there. One of my old professors, an historical archaeologist, is retired and in his late 70s. He just finished and published a book, and he is working on another one. You may be familiar with my old friend Paul W. Parmalee, who some consider to be the father of American zooarchaeology. Paul had retired many years before and was still working with his beloved freshwater mollusc collection in his late 70s when he had stroke while writing at his desk in a local museum.
Manda Forster
June 20, 2014
This is really interesting Doug – have any of the other bodies got any stats on the sector (I’m thinking RPA, SAA &etc). Also, when I was looking into this myself (some time ago), I found a report by Melinda Zeder from 1997, The American Archaeologist, a profile – similar to UK Profiling the profession. You can find a summary online and you can still get hold of it. I haven’t found anything similar since, but it was a useful place to get an idea of the benchmark, and of growth and changes in structure since the late 90s. If only we had the current stats to compare – this does highlight the need for a similar undertaking soon – a nice 20 years on as well 🙂 Anyway, doesn’t help you for figures today, but it is interesting in its own right (I think, but that might just be me!)….
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
June 20, 2014
Hi Amanda,
1. Not really- RPA and SAA have membership lists but nothing else. SAA was responsible for the go in 2005 but that is it so far. There is talks of an American PP but nothing has been decided yet.
2. Zeder 1997- yes very familiar with it. It is the American PP and as you say it would be great to have something happen soon. 🙂
aitchisonk
June 24, 2014
This was talked about in a session at SAA in Austin this year – “Surveying the Americas”. It was more about methodologies than presenting estimates, I’m asking the speakers if they would be happy for their papers to be hosted on the Landward Research site, so watch that space.
Erica Hill
April 22, 2015
Thanks for the data compilation–I’m presenting it to students in my university archaeology course. Yours is still the best data I can find on numbers of archaeologists in the US.
Glenn
June 15, 2018
If I could thumbs up this article I would
Deborah Lynne Wallsmith
June 27, 2020
Terry Childs is female not male.