Where do archaeologists work?

CRM archaeologists may also engage in public education and outreach efforts. They can share their discoveries with the public through site tours, brochures, and exhibits.

Archaeologists in federal, tribal, or state government agencies are responsible for managing, protecting, and interpreting archaeological sites on public land. They manage the collection of artifacts and work in education or public programming. They may also manage programs that are related to research, collections, and exhibition.

They are typically active researchers in their field and are heavily involved in writing grants to help fund their research. They also oversee the analysis and interpretation of projects and publish the results of their work. Their research will likely appear in books, journals, and other popular publications.

Archaeologists whose research areas are not near where they live may have to do extensive travel to conduct surveys, excavations, and laboratory analyses. This is more likely for jobs in federal and state government agencies.

Some archaeologists may work in museums, primarily as a curator or specialists in preservation. Their main common goal is to acquire, preserve, and display important artifacts in a manner that will create permanent instructional exhibitions. They will be called upon to analyze, describe, and catalog the objects in the museum collection.

They will be asked to maintain permanent exhibits that will benefit both the researchers and the public. The curator will also be responsible for running the administrative affairs of the museum. The chief curator is often the museum director and will be accountable to any executive board of governors.

Curators will direct the acquisition, storage, and display of the museum's collection of artifacts and will, if necessary, negotiate the purchase of new objects, sell or exchange existing items, and decide which objects can be loaned to researchers or for exhibitions outside of the museum.

Archaeologists in a museum may also be responsible for authenticating artifacts in the collection, classifying (or reclassifying), and withdrawing any specimens that are found to be unsuitable. They may be highly specialized and focused on a specific collection or be more general and encompassing.