At a recent seminar, I was shocked to meet a handful of people who worked
for LADOT and carried the title "archaeologist."  Shocked because I had
never heard that the DOT had in-house archaeologists (the community here
being pretty small) AND because, upon gentle questioning, found out that
none of these folks had a degree in Anthropology, or even History.  They do
the small Phase I and Phase II jobs from start to finish.  One of them
asked me how to do a shovel test survey, so I'm not sure how they go about
conducting fieldwork, or analyzing the artifacts, for that matter.
 
There being many marginally-employed experienced field archaeologists around
who DO have their B.A.s, I was miffed that these jobs haven't been better filled
.  To my knowledge, they were never advertised either.
 
Is this a Banana boat republic thing or does this happen in other states?