Archeaological Diving

At this point in time I am only OW certified, however as I have been thinking about what I want to do with my life the idea came to me of archeaological diving. Right now I am majoring in Humanities at FSU, but now need to start thinking of grad school and the future. I have a passion for history, cultures and civilizations and a new-found passsion for diving. In an ideal world I would be able to combine these intrests for an interesting career. Can anyone tell me more about what archeological diving might be about? Or how to immerse myself in this world and start on my way? Is anyone familiar with any schools that have a program involved with this? At this point in time I am just starting to research these new ideas. Thanks for any information and help anyone can give me!

There is a program or "speciality" for open public to gain some underwater archeology knowledge.

It is call NAS for Nautical archeology society.

NAS Portsmouth home page

There are many level. I did the course 2 years ago and it was very fun.

I'd be checking out some outfit around the Mediteranean which is already involved in your interest and see if you can hire on with them so as to get some practical knowledge and hands-on experience to see if you are REALLY interested in a career. Then if that works out go ahead with any schooling that you think that you might need to go further in this type of work. Lots of things seem interesting at first but when you get to the job itself many people lose interest and go on to something else. Diving is a good example. Go to Ebay and look at all the stuff for sale which has only been used a couple times by divers who got the bug and then lost interest for one reason or the other within a few dives. As an example over the years of my career in commercial/industrial electrical contruction I had many apprentices who came in all fire-eyed interested in a career in the business who dropped out within six months of finding out the amount of work and knowledge needed to continue on and went to something easier.

My tech instructor is an underwater archeologist. I'll PM you his board name. He is someone you may want to talk to.

Carrie

xeptra:

At this point in time I am only OW certified, however as I have been thinking about what I want to do with my life the idea came to me of archeaological diving. Right now I am majoring in Humanities at FSU, but now need to start thinking of grad school and the future. I have a passion for history, cultures and civilizations and a new-found passsion for diving. In an ideal world I would be able to combine these intrests for an interesting career. Can anyone tell me more about what archeological diving might be about? Or how to immerse myself in this world and start on my way? Is anyone familiar with any schools that have a program involved with this? At this point in time I am just starting to research these new ideas. Thanks for any information and help anyone can give me!

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Don't worry about your cert level, getting more training to at least AOW is the least of what you will be doing. Actually, many Underwater Archs are poor divers as they don't get all that much time in the water, or discount the value of good diver training vs. other studies.

Now for the Cold Water

The first thing to understand that in any academic program you will do 10-50 hours in the lab, library, etc. for every hour you are in the water. You go diving to map and recover, then do the analysis in the lab. Figure 2-8 weeks per year of water work (if you pay for it at the Grad/post grad level or have a grant) in the summer and the rest of the year in the labs and teaching. Getting a grant will cost you many hours every year in application write ups.

The next thing is to understand that no one gets rich, or even makes a lot, doing underwater arch. It is more a matter of love then anything else. Keep this in mind as you start looking at what your student loans may add up to.

The third thing is to know that the number of full time jobs with benefits are very few and far between. Make sure you spouse makes enough to support you etc.

For more info on the above two, check out this site for a listing of jobs at this time. Pay attention to the work/academic requirements, length of the job (permanent or for a specific period) and salary: Underwater Archaeology and Maritime History jobs

If you still want to go forward, sign onto the Sub-Arch discussion list at https://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=SUB-ARCH

You have to cut through a lot of crap on the ethics/treasure hunter issues, but there are a lot of good people on the lists that can help out.

As for schools, in the US you have East Carolina, FSU, and Texas A&M doing good underwater programs. Most of the other schools do only a MA or do a land program with a bit of water in them. Check out this site for other schools around the world: Universities with programs in Underwater Archaeology

But beware, for the few good jobs out there for a full time underwater arch, they almost all require a PhD. so you have to be willing to put in up to 10 years of Grad and post Grad work to get them and the competition is very hard.

If you want to go advocational, then check out the NAS at Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society and MAHS at: Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society

MAHS uses the NAS program but is based out of Maryland. With certifications from either one of these orgs, you should be able to work as a volunteer on just about any project around the world. Don’t bother with most local programs and any program offered by a dive training agency, most of the academic do not recognize them or they are only good for a specific project or geographical area.