Increasingly a university degree is essential for an archaeological career; in Britain 95% of professionals have some form of degree (and this rises to 98% for those in their 20s). But there are exceptions; in Germany and the Netherlands, excavation is usually carried out by technicians who will have had a technical rather than an academic training in skills such as cartography, photography, and draftsmanship, while the actual digging is often done by unskilled workmen, mainly people registered as unemployed. In developing countries the organization of excavations tends to be more hierarchical, with a clear distinction between academics who run the project and the workmen who do the digging, usually with no specific training in archaeology, but supervised by a foreman who will have picked up archaeological skills in the field.
In developed Western countries, there are also differences in the importance assigned to the degree. In Britain, the traditional entry point for professional careers has been the Bachelors degree, completed after three years of study at university, whereas in the USA and Australia it is an Honors degree which takes four years, though entry tends to be at the Masters level. In countries where until recently the Humboldt system dominated (especially in central and northern Europe), students would study for a minimum of seven years or more before emerging with a Masters degree. In some of the Lander in Germany the doctorate is still a formal requirement to direct an archaeological excavation, in others it may be a Masters (in Germany, to excavate a formal permit is required by law), so archaeologists with degrees at Bachelors and Masters level may hit a ceiling in their careers, as in Germany these are considered as technical qualifications. We still do not know how the new group of students graduating with only a Bachelors will be considered, but in Germany at present the reaction of employers generally is very negative, so German archaeology students have set up a national committee to make sure their voice is heard. Other countries such as Italy also treat academic qualifications in a formal legalistic way, and similar rules regulate, for instance, excavation on Federal lands in the USA which are under the control of the Secretary of Interiors. Many countries have signed up to the Valetta Treaty which states that only properly qualified people should be allowed to undertake archaeological excavation, but there are still variations about quite what ‘qualified’ means.
At the time of writing, the structure of university training in Europe is undergoing fundamental change which will eventually have an impact worldwide. In an attempt to equate university qualifications throughout the European Union, and so allow a greater movement of people across national boundaries, an agreement was signed in Bologna in 1999 under which all university courses will share a common structure by 2010, outlined as follows:
1. A system of easily readable and comparable degrees shall be introduced, supported by the implementation of the Diploma Supplement.
2. Higher education course systems shall be based on two consecutive cycles: the undergraduate cycle, lasting three years, shall qualify students for employment, whereas the graduate cycle shall lead to a Masters and/or Doctorate degree.
3. In order to ensure student mobility through the transferability of their achievements, a credit system similar to ECTS shall be launched; credits shall also be obtainable in non-HE contexts such as lifelong learning.
4. Student mobility and free movement shall be promoted.
5. European cooperation in quality assurance shall be established.
6. The European dimension shall be promoted in higher education through curricula, interinstitutional cooperation, and mobility schemes for both students and teachers/researchers.
In some countries this is translated into: three years for the Bachelors, two years for the Masters, and three years for the Doctorate, but in other countries the emphasis may be placed on ‘outcomes’, whereby what one knows is measured by the ‘credits’ in one’s particular discipline as the Bologna Agreement demands. The Agreement has been interpreted differently from one country to another, and even from one part of a country or one university to another. So, in the Walloon area of Belgium, the universities have followed the French system with a first degree in history or art history with some specialist courses in archaeology followed by a two-year Masters in archaeology, whereas the Flemish-speaking area has followed the Dutch system with a three-year Bachelors in archaeology, followed by a one-year Masters in archaeology which qualifies one to work as an archaeologist; in the Netherlands, for those wishing to follow an academic course leading on to the Doctorate, there is a two-year Masters course, but one-year Masters courses exist to provide specialist training. The situation is thus highly confusing, so one can only recommend students check carefully what can be done with a degree, especially if planning to change countries (e. g., will a particular European university accept a one-year Masters degree from an English university when registering for a Doctorate?). Several countries (Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic) have already made the change to the Bologna structure, others are in the process of changing (France, Sweden, Croatia, and Ukraine), some still have no clear program for conforming (Spain and Britain), and universities in other countries such as Australia are adapting their courses to the European structure. The British system already largely conforms except that Masters degrees, tend to be one-year degrees, and this raises problems about whether British qualifications will be accepted everywhere in Europe.
This outward appearance of uniformity, however, masks a great variety, especially for a subject such as archaeology. In some countries, notably Britain and Germany, it is accepted as a discipline in its own right, and from the start of a course students take specialist courses (if not entirely concentrating on archaeology) and graduate with a Bachelors in archaeology; this can be either a science or an arts/humanities degree (BSc or BA). Often there may be a subsidiary subject, the Nebenfach in Germany, while under the modular systems found in many British and American universities one can take modules in another subject, or even do a joint degree with, say, history, classics, or geography. In the USA, though one may major in archaeology, it is part of a wider degree in anthropology, so the courses are likely to include some physical anthropology and linguistics as well as social anthropology. In some Mediterranean countries (France, Spain), it is generally not possible to do a first degree in archaeology, but only a few subsidiary courses, as archaeology is considered a specialist subject only studied at the Masters level; so, in Spain, an archaeology Bachelors degree does not qualify one to practice in archaeology because it does not exist, whereas a history degree does! The usual entry is thus through a degree in history, art history, or, if one is studying the Paleolithic in France, through geology.
This betrays fundamentally different cultural attitudes towards archaeology. Traditionally, it was seen as an adjunct to classics, to history (‘‘the handmaid of History’’), or to art history (mainly dealing with architecture and sculpture), and so simply providing physical remains to illustrate what we already know from written sources, or just filling in the gaps. However, I would argue that now the reverse is true as archaeology deals with the whole of the history of the human species in all parts of the world, whereas history is largely biased towards parts of Asia, Europe, and North Africa and is limited in time, while dealing with only a limited range of material culture, that is, written documents. The theoretical and methodological basis of archaeology is therefore fundamentally different from history and art history, though it can encompass these subjects as well. A better case can be made in arguing that it represents the historical dimension of anthropology.
This difference of attitude, especially of the sorts of questions we ask of the past, leads in turn to different ways of studying the past, and therefore of the methodologies - the reconstruction of ancient environments, of production of artifacts, of trade, discussed elsewhere in this volume, and also of scientific approaches such as the analysis of the physical or chemical characteristics of pottery, of ancient pollen, or animal bones. Here, then, we meet the fundamental divide in the way in which archaeology is taught, for instance, in the more arts-based approach found in southern Europe, the environmental and scientific approaches of northwestern Europe, and the anthropology-based approach of North America. There is also a fundamental divide among archaeologists about who should be undertaking the specialist scientific work: people from other disciplines who have had a specialist training but who are perhaps not familiar with archaeological methodologies and theory; or by archaeologists themselves who must therefore acquire the specialist skills. In the last 50 years this split has become most marked between Britain, which has embraced the wider role of archaeologists and so of the training they need, on the one side, and Germany on the other, where most archaeologists have a narrower training in areas such as the identification and dating of artifacts, and where specialists from other disciplines do much of the laboratory work.
These differences are also reflected in the sort of facilities that universities offer students and also what sort of funding is available to universities to develop those facilities. In a highly commercialized system such as that in the USA, competition between departments can push up the quality of what is on offer, but commercial pressures can equally lead to degrees being offered on the cheap without high quality staff and facilities, and may depend on what income the department can generate from fees and sponsorship. In contrast, countries where there is substantial government funding, either in terms of paying student fees or funding buildings and other developments, ultimate control may be in the hands of state or university bureaucrats who may have an old-fashioned view of what should constitute an archaeology degree. In a mixed system, such as Britain, where there is still substantial state funding, but where the universities are, nominally at least, autonomous organizations, the level of funding for a particular department will be decided locally, and this will be heavily influenced by four main factors: the ability of archaeological staff to convince their universities to invest, the amount of independent funding which can be attracted through research grants and commercial activities, the number of students who register with the department, and the level of fees university students pay. The University Funding Councils for Wales and England (the Government-supported organizations that distribute public funding to the universities) give a larger level of funding for each archaeology student than, say, history or English as the subject is considered ‘part science’ like geography or earth sciences; in Scotland, however, archaeology is classed an arts subject, and so does not attract the extra funding, and this is true of many other countries; in the USA, anthropology is usually taught within a College of Arts and Sciences.
The other major difference is in the size of departments. Again, Germany and Britain provide one of the greatest contrasts; in Germany there are rarely more than two or three academic staff per department, whereas in Britain between 10 and 20 is quite normal, with University College London having over 60. There are also 40 departments in Britain which offer undergraduate archaeology degrees and another 10 which offer them at Masters level, and many others which have some archaeology modules available for students of other subjects such as history, or specialist Masters courses. Most other advanced countries, like Japan, Spain, or the Scandinavian countries, are somewhere in between. Each system has its advantages. Small and highly specialized departments such as those in Germany offer a close relationship between student and staff, and students were, under the Humboldt system, able to move away from their home university for a period of time to gain experience in other universities. This is less easy at the undergraduate level within the Bologna system due to the shortness of courses and their more-defined curriculum (though movement is easier at the Masters level); a recent trend is for German universities to link together to share the teaching of degrees. In contrast, the large departments can usually offer a much greater range of teaching, and better facilities and equipment. However, where there may be a hundred or more students registered for a particular module, library facilities may be strained, though electronic resources are developing rapidly to supplement the traditional book, though perhaps not to replace it.
The size of department is closely linked with political and cultural perceptions of university training. In countries where the degree is seen primarily as a qualification for entry into an academic and professional elite, the percentage of the population attending university will remain relatively small - 15-20%. In Spain the recent conservative government actually planned to reduce the numbers entering university and also the range of degree subjects available; in contrast, in Britain all governments since the 1950s have aimed at increasing numbers, and the present Labour government has a target of 50% (at present it is just over 40%, but the target has already been reached in Scotland). In countries with this higher participation rate, the undergraduate degree in archaeology is seen more as a general training in life skills which may or may not, lead the student into the specialist training needed to practice as a professional. So in Britain and the USA a degree in archaeology is seen in more general terms, as one which provides ‘transferable skills’, for example, an ability to read and write critically, to understand scientific and theoretical debate, the possession of practical skills working in the field or the laboratory, or as a member of a team or research group. So a lot, if not the vast majority, of archaeology graduates will end up as teachers or administrators rather than as archaeologists, though this has become more difficult of late in Britain with the narrowing of the national curriculum for History in schools. In the USA, the majority of those who go on to take a higher degree in archaeology end up in the private and government sectors, though there is still a dynamic university sector.
In countries where there has been a massive increase in student numbers, there has inevitably been a major strain on public finances, and increasingly the trend has been to shift the burden on to the student. When I went to university in Britain in the 1960s not only were all fees paid, but all students were eligible for a living allowance, the level of which depended on one’s parents’ income (who were expected to contribute). Now in most of Britain (though not Scotland) all British and EU students except those from deprived backgrounds have to pay up to ?3000 ‘top-up fees’ and there is certainly no money for living expenses, but repayment does not start until after graduation and until the graduate’s salary is over ?15 000 a year, and so quite a high percentage qualifies for some sort of rebate on their fees. There are pressures to follow the American system whereby the top universities (the Ivy League in the USA, Oxbridge and the Russell Group in Britain) will be able to charge higher fees, and so compete at an international level with the top universities across the world in the quality of teaching and facilities.
In other countries such as France and Germany where tuition is still free, the situation is likely to change radically in the next few years with the introduction of the Bologna system; in Germany it is predicted that undergraduate courses may remain free, but fees may be charged for postgraduate courses, and this is already happening in some of the Lander. However, in the USA and Britain, universities make grants available to try to attract the best students; in the USA there is also a well-developed system for students to obtain assistantships in their departments, fee waivers, money for work study, and scholarships.
The increasing financial pressure on students may also affect student practices. In France, where the entry into university is a right for all those with the necessary qualifications, students tend to stay at home and go to the nearest university for their first degree, thereby cutting living costs. In Britain and the USA, where entry is competitive, students have traditionally moved away from home, and compete for places in the universities which offer the best courses in the subject that interests them, but increasingly they are looking for situations where part-time or vacation work may be available. But worldwide, students still tend to very reliant on parental or family support.
Thus, with the university world in such a state of flux, and especially in a subject such as archaeology where there is a vast variation in the types of department and the courses on offer, the only advice one can give to prospective students is to think carefully about what sort of archaeological career they want; to investigate fully on the web what a particular department may offer, the likely costs in fees and living expenses; and wherever possible, to visit the universities beforehand to see if the reality lives up to the prospectus, for instance, a large list of teachers does not necessarily tell you how many of them are actually there full-time. Many universities and departments have ‘open days’ when students can visit for tours; feedback from existing students on campus can be really useful, as can advice from archaeologists about how departments are rated. The market is becoming increasingly international, and more and more students are moving to other countries to get some of their professional training.
World History
