Rescue Archaeology - As A Profession

As A Profession

Whereas the organizations that take on rescue archaeology contracts are stable entities, the archaeologists who perform the actual field work are, in the main, an army of mobile workers. They work in all types of weather and terrain covering tasks such as Conservation, excavation, artifact curation, field survey often in difficult conditions (such as dense woodland), and typically working to tight deadlines. Given that the outputs of much of the work that is undertaken in advance of development work is not published in peer reviewed journals, the people that perform the actual research are often anonymous and unrecognized.

"Shovelbum" is a play on one of the more polite names which professional archaeologists call each other when they enter the field of rescue archaeology and move from excavation to excavation. As much archaeology is now developer-led, the fieldworkers must move to where the work is when one contract is complete, much like ski-bums following the good snow fall. For professional field archaeologists the Shovelbum phase of a career is now considered a rite of passage. It is during this time that any field archaeologist worth their salt learns the ropes.

Shovelbums is also the name of the world's largest professional archaeology/cultural resource management organization. Founded as a free employment service in 1999 by R. Joe Brandon, Shovel Bums has grown to an active membership of 12,000. Today Shovelbums.org functions not just as a conduit to the majority of jobs in archaeology, but also provides a directory of archaeology field schools and archaeology and cultural resources themed gear.