uncorrected proof perry (2014) professionalization: archaeology as an “expert” knowledge

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Chapter Title Professionalization: Archaeology as an “Expert” Knowledge

Copyright Year 2013

Copyright Holder Springer Science+Business Media New York

Corresponding Author Family Name Perry

Particle

Given Name Sara

Suffix

Division/Department Department of Archaeology

Organization/University University of York

City York

Country UK

Email [email protected]

Comp. by: MANIKANDAN R Stage: Proof Chapter No.: 1002 Title Name: EGADate:6/5/13 Time:14:13:35 Page Number: 1

1 P

2 Professionalization: Archaeology as3 an “Expert” Knowledge

4 Sara Perry

5 Department of Archaeology, University of York,

6 York, UK

7 Introduction

8 Archaeology as a professionalized practice – with

9 accredited specialists, institutional support,

10 defined methodologies, and a coherent knowl-

11 edge base – has a convoluted history. By some

12 accounts, that history extends back no more than

13 a half century, to the post-World War II era and,

14 in particular, to the 1960s and 1970s. By other

15 accounts, it stretches across multiple centuries

16 (if not millennia), with a range of interested indi-

17 viduals and materials converging at various times

18 and places in the making of archaeological

19 expertise. Typical reviews of such disciplinary

20 development tend to emphasize intellectual

21 progression or the role of a select number of

22 notable people in creating a professional archae-

23 ological environment. Iconic publications such as

24 Trigger’s (2006) A History of Archaeological

25 Thought and Daniel’s (1981) A Short History of

26 Archaeology bear witness to these tendencies,

27 compiling the rise of different modes of thinking

28 at the hands of a series of heroic-seeming figures

29 (e.g., the United Kingdom-based V. Gordon

30 Childe or the Swedish archaeologist Oscar

31Montelius) into a cohesive narrative of the disci-

32pline’s evolution.

33Increasingly, however, fine-grained oral

34historical research and institutional analyses hint

35at the more or less unquantifiable, broadly

36informed, and always changing nature of the

37field. Herein, archaeology’s professional culture

38is shown to be not so easily contained, having

39long been built up and molded out of methodol-

40ogies and contributors from different areas of

41practice. These include both academic and

42nonacademic specialists engaging with a range

43of different modes of labor and publicity – from

44exhibitions to site visits, magazines and public

45lectures – that go far beyond traditional excava-

46tion and artifact studies alone.

47The following entry outlines a history of

48archaeology that acknowledges the variety of

49experts and forms of expertise that have

50manifested in professional archaeological work. It

51builds upon sociological and anthropological

52scholarship on professionalization and the

53constitution of expertise (e.g., Carr 2010) and, in

54so doing, speaks not so much to the conceptualiza-

55tion of the archaeological record, but to themanner

56bywhich people and objects have come together to

57naturalize these acts of conceptualizing.

58Definition

59While the history of archaeology has been told by

60many scholars – both historians and archaeologists

C. Smith (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2,# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013


61 themselves – the specific means by which individ-

62 ual interests in old objects were formalized into an

63 internationally recognized speciality legitimated

64 by the university system are less clear. This pro-

65 cess of professionalization is typically appreciated

66 as a cumulative and iterative exercise, as people

67 came together through shared concerns and then

68 began to articulate distinctive social and behav-

69 ioral identities (both spoken and unspoken) linked

70 to specific environments (both formal and infor-

71 mal) that ultimately worked to determine and

72 advance future membership in the group.

73 Few archaeologists have meaningfully inter-

74 rogated such exercises in disciplinary formation,

75 but where so, they have tended to draw upon

76 sociological scholarship or social and historical

77 studies of science (e.g., by Pierre Bourdieu,

78 Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci, T. Lenoir,

79 J.B. Morrell, Steven Shapin) to define their

80 dimensions (e.g., Moser 1995; Patterson 1999;

81 Smith 2009; Perry 2011). According to this liter-

82 ature, professional culture tends to entail

83 a learned jargon, standard methodologies and

84 conceptual models, recognized spaces of learning

85 (e.g., the field site or laboratory), clear means to

86 disseminate ideas and research results (e.g., pub-

87 lication channels and pedagogical programs), and

88 sustained infrastructure for financing and other-

89 wise supporting these exploits. Smith’s (2009)

90 critical reflections on the components of profes-

91 sionalization go further to suggest that student

92 creativity, collegiality, and informal places of

93 knowledge exchange (e.g., tea rooms) are also

94 among those traits crucial to the construction

95 and perpetuation of worlds of expertise.

96 While the exact “ingredients” for disciplinary

97 success vary by field of practice, as Moser (1995)

98 outlines, the professionalization process – as

99 applied to archaeology in particular – appears to

100 follow a clear trajectory. In the first instance,

101 a body of foundational knowledge is generated

102 by various individuals who come to interact with

103 one another through their common interests. The

104 practice of knowledge creation leads naturally

105 into the demarcation of specific methodologies

106 and terminologies, which then become increas-

107 ingly refined and embellished through applica-

108 tion in the field. Participating in this process

109thus works to elaborate a particularized cognitive

110base, increasing its complexity to the point where

111instructional manuals and formal means of con-

112veying methods, concepts, and interpretations

113become necessary to sustain development.

114So too does it formalize a community of prac-

115tice around which a sense of expert identity

116begins to manifest. Participation effectively

117becomes a rite of passage, socializing individuals

118and denoting their belonging and inclusion in

119a now otherwise exclusive group. These individ-

120uals are trained by people who are understood to

121demonstrate competence in the field and that

122training tends to be oriented towards advancing

123specific agendas related to such preexisting com-

124petencies. But the fluid and social nature of

125tuition means that, in its very enactment, students

126begin to generate new networks, procedures,

127pupils, and associated outputs that further extend

128the nature of the practice. They then become key

129to maintaining and furthering the institutional

130infrastructure required to prop up the many facets

131of this work. As per Christensen (2011: 9 citing

132Larson 1977: 17), it is in this moment when “the

133production of knowledge and the production of

134producers are united into the same structure” (and

135that structure is supported by paid labor) that

136a profession comes into being.

137Together, such activities, products, and people

138constitute what Moser (1995) calls a disciplinary

139culture – a community subscribing to an

140interlinked and self-reinforcing set of cognitive

141and cultural identities. Such a community holds

142the monopoly over a body of knowledge and

143methodologies: its members read similar things,

144participate in similar pursuits, speak a similar lan-

145guage, cite one another’s works, and collectively

146respond to the needs of a wider public. At once,

147they exclude this wider public via their apparent

148solidarity and, in so doing, demonstrate the simul-

149taneously “repressive and productive” Foucaul-

150dian power dynamics regularly observed in the

151manifestation of expertise (see Carr 2010: 18).

152Indeed, definitions of professionalization

153often also revolve around amateur/expert status

154distinctions, where less-knowing dilettantes or

155hobbyists are seen to be slowly pushed aside by

156more informed and “qualified” workers. Such

P 2 Professionalization: Archaeology as an “Expert” Knowledge


157 a perspective tends to denigrate or entirely dis-

158 miss the contributions of so-called amateurs to

159 the overall institutionalization of archaeology.

160 At the same time, it often separates amateurs

161 out as a self-defined, self-segregating body of

162 individuals who do not make their living via

163 archaeological knowledge making, but who

164 engage in aspects of its practice purely for lei-

165 sure’s sake. It is in these very processes of ostra-

166 cizing such people from the production of valid

167 knowledge that professionals come to invent

168 themselves as the keepers of expertise. Yet

169 archaeology’s professional status depends upon

170 a range of participants – with their differing

171 skillsets and specialties – to sustain itself today.

172 As Carr (2010) notes, on the ground, expertise is

173 born out of its enactment – in its gestures, its

174 spoken words, its apprenticeship of new workers,

175 its engagements with people outside the institu-

176 tion, its application of different forms of special-

177 ized media, etc. In other words, it is always in

178 a state of evolution.

179 Historical Background

180 To tell the history of archaeology’s professional-

181 ization is to trace back to the first recorded

182 instances of collecting practice, where individ-

183 uals begin to gather demonstrably old objects

184 with an eye towards establishing their age,

185 interpreting their function, and placing them on

186 display (either for personal or wider consump-

187 tion). Some date such practice to at least 2000

188 BCE in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China and

189 suggest that it was often accompanied by

190 attempts at excavation work (Schnapp 2002).

191 The unearthing of unexpected assemblages from

192 prehistoric sites has led to further speculation that

193 humans across time and space have always had

194 a tendency to invest in collecting activities

195 (Schnapp 2002). Others, writing more targeted,

196 method- and region-specific histories of archae-

197 ology, situate the earliest excavations in Britain,

198 for instance, to Medieval times (circa 1190) as

199 devotees sought to substantiate the presence of

200 saints or confirm Arthurian mythology. However,

201 it is collecting and work with collections, above

202any recognizable form of fieldwork, that became

203the breeding ground for archaeology’s emer-

204gence (also see Lucas 2001).

205In all cases, these activities were pursued by

206varied individuals not discernable as modern-day

207archaeologists. Indeed, the entire conceptual and

208methodological basis for, as an example, prehis-

209toric archaeology arguably derived from hetero-

210geneous practitioners (e.g., clerics) and cognate

211fields – geology, anthropology, and paleontology

212(which were themselves all in a state of emer-

213gence) – especially across the nineteenth century.

214Hence, the concept of a professionalized prehis-

215toric archaeology was effectively nonexistent

216until approximately 100 years ago. However,

217what is critical is that the roots of such profes-

218sionalism lie in the systematization and relation-

219ships between people and things that grew out of

220the earliest collecting activities. While these

221activities might be poorly documented in terms

222of their initial scope, by the time of the Renais-

223sance, they had begun to proliferate in conjunc-

224tion with growing trade, travel to the Western

225Hemisphere, more broadscale appreciation of

226history and artistic trends, and increasing pres-

227sure for individuals to conspicuously display

228their connections to such pursuits. A unique col-

229lection could testify to one’s status, education,

230and networks of affiliation, with the consequence

231that collecting became a means of affirming the

232identities of a growing portion of the population.

233The resultant assemblages of objects tended to

234be fairly encyclopedic in terms of their spread.

235They often included a range of specimens from

236around the world, some with medicinal or thera-

237peutic properties, some Classical relics, and some

238purely curious, but all “valued for their intrinsic

239rarity, for the romantic echoes of the far-away

240and strange with which they tantalized the imag-

241ination, and, sometimes, for their aesthetic virtue

242and workmanship” (Pearce 1990: 20). Signifi-

243cantly, it was generally in grouping together

244these objects for showcasing in private spaces

245that they then became the testing grounds for

246systematic comparison, theory building, and

247explanation about the natural and cultural worlds.

248They were increasingly subject to labelling and

249categorization, usually according to the

Professionalization: Archaeology as an “Expert” Knowledge 3 P


250 prevailing conceptual paradigms of the time (e.g.,

251 animal-vegetable-mineral, earth-air-fire-water).

252 From at least the sixteenth century onwards, con-

253 certed intellectual work on such collections

254 expanded to the extent that some were

255 supplemented with guidebooks or human guides

256 in an effort to manage viewers’ understandings of

257 the materials. Similarly, some were moved out of

258 single, private study rooms into larger galleries –

259 what we might now identify as museum spaces –

260 to allow more considered attention to the presen-

261 tation and accessibility of the objects.

262 Concurrent with changes to this physical

263 staging of collections, dissemination beyond the

264 display space itself gained ground via the produc-

265 tion of manuals, atlases, and catalogues of objects

266 (e.g., Schnapp 2002; Moser 2013). Indeed,

267 collectors began to invest in artists to record

268 their own personal collections, document other

269 collections of interest, or copy from preexisting

270 collections in manuscripts. That illustrative prac-

271 tice itself was then increasingly refined, with

272 depicted materials becoming more abstract and

273 standardized to allow comparison and structured

274 evaluation. In this sense, early gallery/museum

275 work and illustrative work (circulated via

276 published sources) ran in parallel, feeding back

277 into one another as regards the construction of

278 object types and the articulation of basic schemas

279 for making sense of artifactual and other

280 materials.

281 Publication is credited by many as the trans-

282 formative force in crystallizing professional

283 growth. As per Schnapp (2002: 137), it “provided

284 the means of social and intellectual visibility of

285 the antiquarian discipline.” Arguably, however,

286 this emphasis on publication perpetuates the

287 long-lived tension in historically oriented studies

288 to privilege textual outputs above material

289 remains (for a recent discussion of this tension

290 see Lucas 2012). At the same time, it distracts

291 from the many related activities that fed into the

292 building of archaeological communities. Where

293 archaeology finds its bearings is in its privileging

294 of the material, its attention to objects them-

295 selves, and in the collectivities (people and

296 other artifacts) that form around these objects.

297 Some see such focusing of attention on artifacts

298above text as a patently strategic move by inter-

299ested individuals looking to carve out a distinct

300niche of practice (e.g., Lucas 2012: 22). Regard-

301less of the intentionality behind it, from the sev-

302enteenth century onwards, propelled by

303Renaissance and emerging Enlightenment devel-

304opments, an observable shift in concern towards

305material sources (away from purely literary

306sources) manifested itself (Moser 2013). More

307collecting led naturally into more contemplation

308of those finds; and opportunities for conversation

309about them were facilitated by the foundation of

310key learned societies (e.g., the Royal Society in

3111660; the Society of Antiquaries of London in

3121707) and the first public museums (see Diaz-

313Andreu 2007; Pearce 2007).

314The latter are particularly important as they

315tended to be characterized by the movement of

316previously private collections into university or

317nationally sponsored galleries, making them

318accessible on a larger scale. Accordingly, these

319new spaces (e.g., the Ashmolean – the earliest

320public museum in the world – which opened in

3211683 in Oxford, UK) became home to the same

322mixture of exotic specimens and antiquities once

323so integral to individual identity building. How-

324ever, such collections continued to operate here

325in a similar fashion as before, yet at a larger

326scale – as resources for study and affirmations

327of institutional and national status. Classical

328objects, in particular, suggested a direct connec-

329tion to revered cultures of the past, and as their

330institutional showcasing coincided with major

331colonizing activities around the world, we see

332these original collections expanded often as

333a result of federally sanctioned missions to elab-

334orate them. Antiquities hence became embroiled

335in a nationalistic enterprise as states and major

336organizations sought to legitimate their standing

337(Diaz-Andreu 2007). This, in turn, fuelled further

338collecting and dedicated excavation work.

339In concert with such institutional develop-

340ment, learned societies continued to grow.

341Despite their often ephemeral nature, these soci-

342eties were indispensable to the cultivation of

343knowledgeable antiquarians, and they are now

344appreciated by some as the lynchpins of disci-

345plinary development (e.g., Sweet 2004). They



346 provided forums for individuals with shared

347 interests to meet, correspond, exchange transac-

348 tions, view objects (either physically on display

349 in meetings or illustrated in society publications),

350 avail themselves of associated libraries, and oth-

351 erwise generally “participate in the wider world

352 of learning” (Sweet 2004: 81). Their networks

353 were wide, spreading across Europe and Euro-

354 pean colonies into the Americas and Asia (Sweet

355 2004; Diaz-Andreu 2007). Some such societies

356 were implicated in the establishment of the first

357 major public museums (e.g., the Museum of the

358 Society of Antiquaries of Scotland founded in

359 1780). However, they also manifested, for

360 instance, in Britain from the early 1800s, in

361 smaller literary and philosophical societies and

362 county archaeological societies, where individ-

363 uals who perhaps did not have the means to

364 journey abroad (but who nevertheless shared the

365 epistemological impulse to observe, explain, sit-

366 uate themselves in, and order the world around

367 them) sought out local antiquities for their col-

368 lections (Pearce 1990). Together, these societies

369 helped to propel a trade in artifacts; and at the

370 same time, they facilitated discussion about both

371 the nature of the artifacts themselves and the most

372 systematic means for acquiring them. As such,

373 they were among the “circulation systems” (also

374 including auction houses and dealers) key to sup-

375 plying the material remains around which archae-

376 ology emerged (after Gosden and Larson 2007:

377 49, 52). Their interests fed into barrow digging

378 and an increase in excavation activities, and their

379 collections became showpieces for the wave of

380 new museums that opened in the mid-nineteenth

381 century. That wave (evident across Europe) was

382 prompted in part by state concern to educate (and,

383 arguably via such education, placate) citizens and

384 in part by the success of great international expo-

385 sitions (Pearce 1990; Diaz-Andreu 2007). In Brit-

386 ain, for instance, such museums and related

387 exhibitions promised a platform for “social

388 reform and industrial progress,” and their view-

389 ing became part of the recreational endeavors of

390 middle class individuals (Gosden and Larson

391 2007: 37). On the ground, though, they were the

392 seedbeds for honing the archaeological eye – that

393 is, for breeding public recognition of an emerging

394field of artifactual study and for acting as conver-

395gence points for those articulating that study.

396What is critical is that these museums often

397assumed a role equivalent to the scientific labo-

398ratory, with curators sometimes explicitly

399acknowledging their lab-like possibilities –

400where “ideas could be developed, tested, or

401discarded” (Gosden and Larson 2007: 63, in ref-

402erence to the curator Henry Balfour’s perception

403of the Pitt Rivers Museum). Like the manuals of

404antiquities published from the sixteenth century,

405museums offered room to experiment with con-

406cepts, refine categories, and literally institution-

407alize ways of thinking about the past based on

408observable materials. Such is true in the broader

409sciences as well, with some arguing that invest-

410ment in scientific laboratories actually followed

411that of museums as sites for knowledge making.

412Either way, they seem to have provided the ear-

413liest solid infrastructure for archaeological work,

414with some claiming that the first dedicated chairs

415of archaeology were specifically employed with

416an aim towards training for museum, library, and

417archival work (Diaz-Andreu 2007). The Peabody

418Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in the

419USA established in 1866, for example, has been

420credited with crafting “an institutional frame-

421work within which scholars could do scientific

422work” (Christensen 2011: 13). These spaces

423effectively set in place the first meaningful

424homes for archaeology, and it is significant that

425some of the most paradigmatic shifts in archaeo-

426logical thinking came about via museum-based

427activities (see below).

428While the earliest university post in archaeol-

429ogy is attributed to Uppsala in 1662, such posi-

430tions were incredibly limited, and their holders

431tended to simultaneously occupy most other

432related posts in a given country (e.g., museum,

433governmental, and university-based) (Kaeser

4342006; Diaz-Andreu 2007). In other words, these

435first professionals were often working in some

436isolation on all aspects of the antiquarian pursuit

437at once. Arguably, it was only as museums (and

438associated cultural institutions) exploded in the

439mid-nineteenth century that a genuine lack of

440sufficient specialists to fill related positions

441exposed itself, and hence, attention to formal



442 means of outputting a competent workforce

443 began to grow (Kaeser 2006). As Browman

444 (2002) has noted, individuals such as the Ameri-

445 can Frederic Ward Putnam (1839–1915), who

446 held or established many of the foundational dis-

447 ciplinary appointments in the USA, were trained

448 in a bespoke, apprentice-like fashion and tended

449 to replicate such training in their own early prac-

450 tice. Here, again, the museum (the Peabody) was

451 the staging ground for capacity building, and in

452 conjunction with expansion of the museological

453 collections, but without a formal student body for

454 support, Putnam sought out connections with

455 interested people around the USA via correspon-

456 dence (Browman 2002). Akin to (if not indivisi-

457 ble from) the circulation systems of learned

458 societies, this “correspondence school” of

459 archaeology (Browman 2002: 219 citing Hinsley

460 1999: 144) allowed for exchanges of ideas and

461 methods of collecting, recruitment of new people

462 onto excavation expeditions to expand the collec-

463 tions, and acquisition of other personal collec-

464 tions. However, it also helped to demarcate the

465 institution as the arbiter of knowledge making, as

466 individuals then began to turn to institutionally

467 sited practitioners to validate their finds and seek

468 out further training. The advantage, as has been

469 noted for prehistoric archaeology, was that these

470 sites provided an opportunity to “put an end to the

471 previous epistemological confusion,” fostering

472 common methodologies and harnessing the

473 seeming authority of the institutional structure

474 to “lay down the heuristic frameworks of the

475 prehistoric science to come” (Kaeser 2006: 153).

476 Around Europe, the museum was long

477 a driving force in the conceptual solidification

478 of archaeology, as its collections offered the com-

479 parative materials necessary to think through

480 chronologies and typologies, which themselves

481 then supplied the fabric for pursuing further intel-

482 lectual work. Base epistemological frames

483 for archaeological thinking, such as Danish

484 C.J. Thomsen’s Three-Age System, were devel-

485 oped and elaborated specifically in the museum

486 environment on collections that were then put on

487 display for visitors and, in their showing, thereby

488 subject to more interrogation. The British-based

489 General Pitt Rivers’ typological-evolutionary take

490on human history and the contrasting culture-

491historical approach of the US-based Franz Boas

492(Gosden and Larson 2007) were similarly articu-

493lated and debated through active negotiation of

494collections in museological/display spheres.

495These same museums often stood as the first lec-

496ture spaces for concerted teaching of archaeology,

497and as per above, their growth in numbers over the

498course of the nineteenth century subsequently led

499to a demand for qualified practitioners to take over

500new managerial and curatorial posts. In tandem

501with museum work, related heritage institutions

502began to spread across Europe in the mid-to-late

503nineteenth century – part of the same ideological

504drive to unite and propagate identity on a national

505and regional level (Kaeser 2006). The British pre-

506dicament, where “demonstration of a preservation

507ethic came to be seen as a hallmark of a ‘civilized’

508nation” (Emerick 2003), had currency abroad as

509well, leading to the establishment of governmental

510posts and associated protective legislation for his-

511torical places and monuments and further pushing

512on the demand for qualified workers (Kaeser

5132006). This meant that institutional attention then

514began to be turned towards producing such

515workers, leading to the articulation of university-

516based accreditation in archaeology around the turn

517of the twentieth century (see below).

518From the perspective of professionalization,

519therefore, it is at this point that archaeology had

520the scaffolding in place to elaborate a disciplinary

521culture. Indeed, it follows a general trend evident

522across the sciences in the late nineteenth century

523towards increasingly professionalized practice.

524By this time, foundational concepts had been

525articulated, some basic procedures for studying

526material culture were under development, and an

527authoritative base centered especially in the

528museum was in place to support the ongoing

529activities of the community. Expertise in the

530methodology of excavation itself arguably played

531a marginal role in the beginnings of archaeology

532(Lucas 2001), as it tended to be from the obser-

533vation and handling of objects (directly or indi-

534rectly through visualizations), site visits,

535conversation and sharing of resources, and sub-

536sequent intellectual exercises in classification and

537schema construction using collected materials



538 that the basic infrastructure for the discipline

539 emerged.

540 While institutionally recognized “profes-

541 sionals” were few and their activities extensive,

542 their connections to learned societies and other

543 productive people, places, and materials

544 (e.g., collections) together created the architecture

545 for the professionalization of the field. These same

546 individuals were often directly linked to the devel-

547 opment of the first discipline-specific periodicals

548 and to major congresses and conferences that

549 brought interested people together under increas-

550 ingly formalized circumstances. Some such

551 circumstances, such as the International Congress

552 of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology

553 (Congres international d’anthropologie et

554 d’archeologie prehistoriques), founded in the

555 1860s, were among the earliest transcontinental

556 networking spaces, where hundreds of individuals

557 with varying levels of expertise could gather every

558 year or so to discuss emerging knowledge and

559 techniques. With such communities of practi-

560 tioners thus in place, it was with the ensuing

561 development of a rigorous educational structure

562 (for outputting sufficient workers to satisfy

563 demand) that the professional archaeological

564 industry coalesced.

565 Key Issues/Current Debates

566 It is the twentieth century and beyond that per-

567 haps represents the most controversial stage in

568 archaeology’s solidification, arguably because

569 consideration of this timeframe has been less

570 concerted and consistent. There is general agree-

571 ment that it is distinguished by the emergence of

572 university-based expertise, which effectively sets

573 in place a self-perpetuating cycle for the disci-

574 pline – yielding students specifically trained in

575 “archaeology” who then seek archaeological

576 employment at organizations which scout out

577 that very brand of institutionally sanctioned

578 archaeological knowledge. Some see this period

579 as the second phase in the institutionalization

580 process (Kaeser 2006) – wherein the ensconcing

581 of archaeology in academia provides for its

582 “anchoring in the long term,” apart from the

583often ephemeral constitution of societies, con-

584gresses, journals, and even museological institu-

585tions in the nineteenth century and before. As per

586above, scholarly departments of archaeology

587sometimes evolved out of preexisting museum

588spaces, at the hands of enterprising specialists,

589and/or even out of the remnant collections of

590international expositions (e.g., see Browman

5912002). But the growth of the archaeological edu-

592cation business is subject to debate, with sugges-

593tions that for most of the early twentieth century,

594student numbers were minute and employment

595opportunities comparable. Emerging research

596hints that the situation was more complex and

597that the tendency to reduce twentieth-century

598archaeology to academia alone deserves to be

599questioned. In Britain, for instance, 1 year after

600its official launch in 1937, London University’s

601Institute of Archaeology was outputting upwards

602of 100 students per year in a rigorous, laboratory-

603oriented archaeological style taught by many of

604the leading practitioners of the time (Perry 2011).

605This institution was simultaneously invested in

606the design and dissemination of major archaeo-

607logical exhibitions, which were advertised across

608the country, attracting a viewership that num-

609bered, in some cases, in the thousands. It is also

610linked to the earliest British television broadcasts

611of archaeology, which evolved over time to

612become crucial means of publicizing, attracting

613support for, and recruiting new pupils into the

614discipline. Even in the late 1920s, individual

615archaeology classes run through University

616College London saw registration of c. 20 students

617each (predominantly, if not fully, female); and

618major excavations at sites such as Maiden Castle

619in the 1930s embraced 100 or more students and

620assistants per year, with thousands of visitors and

621tens of thousands of related souvenirs and publi-

622cations sold (Perry 2011). Moreover, extramural

623education in British archaeology had its origins as

624early as the 1940s, and dedicated excavation

625training schools are documented from at least

626the 1930s.

627Across Europe and North America, such dis-

628ciplinary growth continued, propelled in particu-

629lar by the Depression and World War II. In the

630USA, the former led to government investment in



631 archaeological practice to assist with job crea-

632 tion, thereby fuelling a need for trained workers

633 (Patterson 1999). In Europe, the latter resulted in

634 regeneration efforts (both historical and indus-

635 trial), ultimately manifesting in documentation

636 work and rescue archaeology that demanded the

637 labor of dedicated commercial archaeological

638 units and associated volunteers (Roskams 2001),

639 again fuelling university enrollment numbers.

640 What is critical for professionalization is that, in

641 all cases, post-WWII is marked by increasing

642 specialization within the discipline as the nature

643 of practice extended itself; an escalating codifi-

644 cation of such practice, with the publication of

645 further manuals and textbooks and the drafting of

646 the first codes of ethics; growth in the number and

647 variety of professional organizations, which carry

648 on the networking and convergence functions of

649 earlier learned societies and which themselves

650 continue to contribute to disciplinary codification

651 and publication; greater legal and legislative

652 attention to the nature of archaeology owing to

653 its ballooning relationship to city planning and

654 industrial development; and heightening stratifi-

655 cation within the archaeological workforce, gen-

656 erating a full spectrum of laborers – from

657 itinerant fieldworkers to interested volunteers, to

658 full-time unionized staff, office-based profes-

659 sionals, academic elite and transient lecturers

660 (Patterson 1999; Roskams 2001).

661 Importantly, then, the makeup of the disci-

662 pline is seemingly no more uniform today than

663 formerly; and the long-standing argument that so-

664 called amateurs have been displaced from

665 archaeology is highly debatable. Key museolog-

666 ical collections have been birthed out of, and

667 continue to be amplified by, donations from

668 a range of contributors (both accredited special-

669 ists and not) (e.g., Gosden and Larson 2007);

670 excavations still rely on volunteer efforts; and

671 funding for practice is often tied directly into

672 broader public impact. Many people, sites, and

673 materials have always and collectively been

674 indispensable to the cycle of disciplinary knowl-

675 edge construction. What has changed over time,

676 therefore, is arguably no more than the number of

677 people and things involved and the means by

678 which they are organized and classified.

679International Perspectives

680Outside of Euro-America, the professionalization

681process for archaeology has followed a similar

682path, although there is evidence from both Japan

683and China that robust antiquarian enquiry and

684publication (e.g., in the form of antiquities man-

685uals) might have emerged much earlier than in

686Europe (Schnapp 2002; Lozny 2011). Critically,

687however, from approximately the nineteenth cen-

688tury onwards, a general trend presented itself of

689concepts and methodologies spreading from

690Euro-American institutions abroad, either via

691movement of Euro-American-trained practi-

692tioners to foreign locations (not infrequently in

693association with colonization ventures) or via

694training of foreigners at Euro-American institu-

695tions followed by their return home to apply such

696training domestically (see contributions in Lozny

6972011). Regardless of the direction of their move-

698ment, once ensconced internationally, these var-

699ious practitioners participated in the production

700of region-specific terminologies and typologies,

701societies, journals, and all those related disciplin-

702ary constituents that come to form the anatomy of

703a distinctive professional culture. Their links to

704Euro-America also worked to facilitate wider

705exposure for local research and to cultivate sys-

706tems of patronage on a worldwide scale, which, in

707turn, fed back into the ongoing validation and

708scaffolding of archaeological practice overall.

709Future Directions

710Professionalization is an ever-evolving process,

711meaning that its study is continuously open to

712elaboration. Indeed, focused attention on the pro-

713fessionalization process in archaeology is still

714rare, making the scope for further enquiry rela-

715tively vast. Growing attention to institutional his-

716tories has been among the catalysts for

717reconsideration of the constitution of expertise

718in archaeology (e.g., see Kaeser 2006; contribu-

719tions in Pearce 2007). This work is

720complemented by recent fine-grained oral histor-

721ical research (e.g., interviews with current and

722retired practitioners), as well as gender-oriented



723 studies of the discipline, and concerted interest in

724 all those “forgotten” participants in archaeologi-

725 cal knowledge making whose contributions have

726 played into the everyday articulation of the

727 field of practice, yet whose names have generally

728 been eclipsed by the “great” archaeologists

729 documented in typical disciplinary histories

730 (Smith 2009). Those elements of archaeology

731 that make it seem a coherent subject matter –

732 that supply it with a professional air and an expert

733 identity – are similarly seeing greater delibera-

734 tion, including research into how archaeologists

735 dress, observe the world around them, and speak

736 and conduct themselves in the field.

737 As noted by Gosden and Larson (2007: 151),

738 the term “discipline” “implies an attempt to con-

739 tain and control something that is essentially

740 unrestrained.” Such has always been the nature

741 of archaeology: a multipronged, composite pur-

742 suit that now stands apart as an accredited pro-

743 fession but that has always impinged upon other

744 specialty areas, drawn on methods from a variety

745 of fields, attracted contributors from comparably

746 varied spheres of interest, and attended to

747 materials from all times and places of human

748 existence. Accordingly, perhaps the most produc-

749 tive line of study today is research into the net-

750 works and movements of people and things

751 across the boundaries of archaeological practice –

752 i.e., enquiry into precisely that set of messy con-

753 nections and exchanges that has rendered the

754 discipline into something recognizable (e.g.,

755 Gosden & Larson 2007). Archaeology, as it is

756 advocated today, is not only a specialist intellec-

757 tual endeavor but so too a platform for transfer-

758 able skill development applicable to a range of

759 other fields. In this respect, the boundaries of the

760 professional community are ever-swelling, and

761 the individuals and objects that come together to

762 make it possible and legitimate are likely to con-

763 tinue to challenge its dimensions. Thus, while

764 diverse concerns for the human past may have

765 been consolidated over time into a distinct form

766 of expertise, the professionalization process itself

767 suggests that the nature of that expertise will

768 never be stable.

769Cross-References

770▶Archaeology in the Enlightenment

771▶Archaeology Museums and the Public

772▶Archaeology Societies, Professional

773▶Archaeology within Public Education:

774Disciplining through Education

775▶Archival Research and Historical Archaeology

776▶British Pioneers and Fieldwork Traditions

777▶Encyclopaedic Museum

778▶Oral Sources and Oral History

779▶United Kingdom, Archaeological Museums

780of the

781▶Universal Museums

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920499-508.


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