How to become Anthropologists and Archeologist in 2024

Anthropologists and Archeologist Study the origin, development, and behavior of human beings. May study the way of life, language, or physical characteristics of people in various parts of the world. May engage in systematic recovery and examination of material evidence, such as tools or pottery remaining from past human cultures, in order to determine the history, customs, and living habits of earlier civilizations.

Anthropologists and Archeologist is Also Know as

In different settings, Anthropologists and Archeologist is titled as

  • American Indian Policy Specialist
  • Applied Anthropologist
  • Applied Cultural Anthropologist
  • Archaeologist
  • Forensic Anthropologist
  • Historical Archaeologist
  • Research Anthropologist
  • Research Archaeologist
  • Researcher

Education and Training of Anthropologists and Archeologist

Anthropologists and Archeologist is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Anthropologists and Archeologist

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Anthropologists and Archeologist

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Anthropologists and Archeologist

Training Required for Anthropologists and Archeologist

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Anthropologists and Archeologist in different industries are

What Do Anthropologists and Archeologist do?

  • Study objects and structures recovered by excavation to identify, date, and authenticate them and to interpret their significance.
  • Collect information and make judgments through observation, interviews, and review of documents.
  • Research, survey, or assess sites of past societies and cultures in search of answers to specific research questions.
  • Write about and present research findings for a variety of specialized and general audiences.
  • Describe artifacts' physical properties or attributes, such as the materials from which artifacts are made and their size, shape, function, and decoration.
  • Plan and direct research to characterize and compare the economic, demographic, health care, social, political, linguistic, and religious institutions of distinct cultural groups, communities, and organizations.
  • Compare findings from one site with archeological data from other sites to find similarities or differences.
  • Record the exact locations and conditions of artifacts uncovered in diggings or surveys, using drawings and photographs as necessary.
  • Assess archeological sites for resource management, development, or conservation purposes and recommend methods for site protection.
  • Gather and analyze artifacts and skeletal remains to increase knowledge of ancient cultures.
  • Collect artifacts made of stone, bone, metal, and other materials, placing them in bags and marking them to show where they were found.
  • Identify culturally specific beliefs and practices affecting health status and access to services for distinct populations and communities, in collaboration with medical and public health officials.
  • Consult site reports, existing artifacts, and topographic maps to identify archeological sites.
  • Train others in the application of ethnographic research methods to solve problems in organizational effectiveness, communications, technology development, policy making, and program planning.
  • Advise government agencies, private organizations, and communities regarding proposed programs, plans, and policies and their potential impacts on cultural institutions, organizations, and communities.
  • Create data records for use in describing and analyzing social patterns and processes, using photography, videography, and audio recordings.
  • Develop intervention procedures, using techniques such as individual and focus group interviews, consultations, and participant observation of social interaction.
  • Develop and test theories concerning the origin and development of past cultures.
  • Lead field training sites and train field staff, students, and volunteers in excavation methods.
  • Collaborate with economic development planners to decide on the implementation of proposed development policies, plans, and programs based on culturally institutionalized barriers and facilitating circumstances.
  • Clean, restore, and preserve artifacts.
  • Conduct participatory action research in communities and organizations to assess how work is done and to design work systems, technologies, and environments.
  • Organize public exhibits and displays to promote public awareness of diverse and distinctive cultural traditions.
  • Formulate general rules that describe and predict the development and behavior of cultures and social institutions.
  • Study archival collections of primary historical sources to help explain the origins and development of cultural patterns.
  • Apply traditional ecological knowledge and assessments of culturally distinctive land and resource management institutions to assist in the resolution of conflicts over habitat protection and resource enhancement.
  • Enhance the cultural sensitivity of elementary and secondary curricula and classroom interactions in collaboration with educators and teachers.
  • Participate in forensic activities, such as tooth and bone structure identification, in conjunction with police departments and pathologists.
  • Teach or mentor undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology or archeology.
  • Write grant proposals to obtain funding for research.

Qualities of Good Anthropologists and Archeologist

  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.

Tools Used by Anthropologists and Archeologist

  • 35 millimeter cameras
  • Alidades
  • Bench scales
  • Binoculars
  • Bucket augers
  • Cold chisels
  • Conductance meters
  • Conductivity probes
  • Countertop centrifuges
  • Crack hammers
  • Dental burs
  • Dental picks
  • Deoxyribonucleic acid DNA analyzers
  • Deoxyribonucleic acid DNA sequencers
  • Desktop computers
  • Dial calipers
  • Digital audio recorders
  • Digital calipers
  • Digital cameras
  • Digital levels
  • Digital video cameras
  • Digitizers
  • Directional compasses
  • Drying ovens
  • Drying racks
  • Dust masks
  • Electrical resistivity instruments
  • Electron microprobes
  • Electron microscopes
  • Electronic topload scales
  • Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay ELISA plate readers
  • External lavalier microphones
  • Film processors
  • Flat-ended shovels
  • Flatbed scanners
  • Fluorometers
  • Four wheel drive 4WD vehicles
  • Fume hoods
  • Gel electrophoresis boxes
  • Geophysical magnetometers
  • Glass beakers
  • Glass burets
  • Global positioning system GPS receivers
  • Graded sieves
  • Ground penetrating radar GPR
  • High pressure liquid chromatograph HPLC equipment
  • High resolution industrial computed tomography CT scanners
  • Hot stir plates
  • Hydraulic drilling rigs
  • Immersion thermostats
  • Inductively coupled plasma emission spectroscopes ICP-ES
  • Inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopes ICP-MS
  • Industrial micro computed tomography CT scanners
  • Laboratory balances
  • Laboratory binocular microscopes
  • Laboratory dropping pipettes
  • Laboratory fume hoods
  • Laboratory glove boxes
  • Laboratory precision balances
  • Laboratory refrigerators
  • Laboratory scalpels
  • Laboratory vacuum dryers
  • Laboratory vacuum ovens
  • Laboratory water purification systems
  • Laptop computers
  • Laser line levels
  • Laser scanners
  • Liquid handling robots
  • Lufkin tape measures
  • Luminescence readers
  • Magnetic stirring bars
  • Mandibulometers
  • Marshalltown trowels
  • Mesh sifting screens
  • Metal detectors
  • Metallurgical microscopes
  • Microcentrifuges
  • Oil immersion microscopes
  • Personal computers
  • Personal digital assistants PDA
  • Petrographic microscopes
  • pH indicators
  • Plains trowels
  • Platform scales
  • Plotters
  • Plumb bobs
  • Pneumatic airscribes
  • Pneumatic chisels
  • Pocket loupes
  • Polarizing microscopes
  • Polymerase chain reaction PCR hoods
  • Polymerase chain reaction PCR thermocyclers
  • Portable gamma spectrometers
  • Portable x ray machines
  • Precision rulers
  • Precision saws
  • Protective gloves
  • Remote sensing equipment
  • Rock picks
  • Round point shovels
  • Safety goggles
  • Sandblasters
  • Scanning electron microscopes SEM
  • Scuba diving equipment
  • Selective ion meters
  • Shaker screens
  • Shovels
  • Side scan sonars
  • Slide hammers
  • Slide scanners
  • Sliding calipers
  • Soil probes
  • Soil samplers
  • Spectrophotometers
  • Spreading calipers
  • Steam autoclaves
  • Stereo zoom microscopes
  • Tablet computers
  • Theodolites
  • Thermal cyclers
  • Thermomixers
  • Thin section saws
  • Total stations
  • Transcription equipment
  • Tree ring sampling kits
  • Triple beam balances
  • Ultracentrifuges
  • Ultrasonic cleaning machines
  • Ultraviolet UV crosslinkers
  • Ultraviolet UV transilluminators
  • Underwater digital cameras
  • Underwater still cameras
  • Vacuum freeze-drying chambers
  • Vernier calipers
  • Water screening devices
  • X ray cabinets
  • X ray diffractometers
  • X ray fluorescence XRF spectrometers

Technology Skills required for Anthropologists and Archeologist

  • Adobe Acrobat
  • Adobe Dreamweaver
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe InDesign
  • Adobe PageMaker
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Age progression software
  • Apple Final Cut Express
  • Apple iMovie
  • Applied Biosystems GeneMapper
  • Archeological Sites Management Information System ASMIS
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Automated National Catalog System ANCS
  • C++
  • Data visualization software
  • ESRI ArcGIS software
  • ESRI ArcGIS Survey 123
  • ESRI ArcInfo
  • ESRI ArcView
  • Facebook
  • GE Healthcare ImageQuant TL
  • Gene Codes Sequencher
  • Genealogy software
  • Geographic information system GIS software
  • Geographic information system GIS systems
  • Global positioning system GPS software
  • Golden Software Surfer
  • Graphics software
  • IBM SPSS Statistics
  • Image enhancement software
  • Insightful S-PLUS
  • Leica Geosystems ERDAS IMAGINE
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft FrontPage
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Microsoft Windows
  • Microsoft Windows Movie Maker
  • Microsoft Word
  • Qaulis Research The Ethonograph
  • RockWare ArcMap
  • SAS
  • SIL International The Linguist's Shoebox
  • Software development tools
  • Sony Creative Software Vegas Movie Studio
  • STATISTICA
  • Structured query language SQL
  • SYSTAT
  • The MathWorks MATLAB
  • The University of Tennessee FORDISC
  • Trimble Pathfinder Office
  • Voice activated software
  • Web browser software
  • Wolfram Research Mathematica
  • Word processing software