I don't think anyone really knows with certainty what the number of
archeologists is in the US and that's partly a problem of definition. I was
intentionally being provactive with my comment about persons with a B.A. to
point out some of the difficulty we would face in trying to legislate a
definition of an archaeologist. It's hard to agree on where to draw that
line, and one is bound to cause offense to someone no matter what your
personal opinion might be. Both the Secretary of Interior's Standards and
the Register of Professional Archaeologists, however, do point to a
graduate degree as a basic (though it can be in a "closely related field").

In a joint statement issued by the SAA, SHA, and AIA to the US Commission
on Oceans two years ago those three major organizations claimed to
represent nearly 25,000 professional and avocational members. My
recollection is that SHA has about 2,500 members, and I believe that the
SAA has about three times that number. The AIA is the largest
archaeological organization North America, but very few of its members
actually work in archaeology (they count everyone who subscribes to
Archaeology Magazine). SHA has a large student membership that is not
actively employed in archaeology, as is the case of SAA. SAA also has a
good number of avocational members, but for some reason there does not seem
to be many lay people in the SHA who join out of an informal interest in
the subject matter. Then, of course, there is a fair amount of overlap
between the SAA and SHA memberships, and I'm sure there's more than a few
practicing archaeologists who don't join any organization. So it gets
pretty hard to come up with a reliable consolidated number.

The Register of Professional Archaeologists currently has about 1,500 RPAs
registered, as near as I can recall. My best guess is that it probably
represents about one quarter of the people who actually meet their
qualification standards, but my estimate of 6,000 is a pretty soft number.
Even if we went with the inflated number of 25,000, that still is not a
very big consituency of caring, committed voters who can influence
politicians. For that matter, one wonders how many of us do vote, in light
of the fact that only about 25-30% of SHA and SAA members vote in their own
society elections.





                      Anita
                      Cohen-Williams           To:       [log in to unmask]
                      <[log in to unmask]        cc:       (bcc: Vergil Noble/MWAC/NPS)
                      M>                       Subject:  Question
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                      ARCHAEOLOGY
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                      09/09/04 12:08 AM
                      MST
                      Please respond to
                      Anita
                      Cohen-Williams






How many archaeologists are there (roughly)? How many members in the
various societies (their web sites do not say)?

I am trying to figure out the market share of the "market" and cannot
find any demographics.

--
Anita Cohen-Williams
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