what exactly is an archeologists job??

Question

i know the basics but i want to know more about it in depth....thanks, Val

Answer 1

The study of excavation finds (building foundations or objects or artifacts), compared with written sources, other monuments, etc, in order to establish the original form, function and chronology of the excavated sites and objetcs. This way, our knowledge of the past cultures and art history is promoted.

Answer 2

Funnilly enough, as a professional archaeologist i ask myself the same question on a regular basis; i can only tell you the purpose of my job from an Irish perspective as most countries have different needs of our services and some countries hardly use archaeologists al all....

As you say you know the basics, but a large part of my job entails assessments of proposed developments; by law any development which is within a certain distance of a known archaeological monument must be assessed by an archaeologist, both on a map and by a careful test-trenching in the footprint of the development to see if there are any features of archaeological interest.
This can be a very small task, say, unter a new garage or house , but it can also be bery large, like when a new road is planned a test trench must be dug the whole length of the proposed route to find any archaeology.
once the assessment has been completed, all features are included in a report and sent to the heritage section of the government who decide whether to excavate the archaeology or suggest a change to the development which would allow the archaeology to be preserved.
If it is decided to excavate the features, thats what we do; writing the results into a report which again is given to the government.
All this work is ultimately paid for by the developer, which is often very expensive, but can a price be placed on our heritage?