When I was a child, I wanted to be an archaeologist. What about now? A French case study
Anne Moreau, Sylvain Badey
Abstract The development of digital technologies in archaeology brought up changes in the way of practicing archaeology, since the apparition of computers and even more with the internet. In the last few years, we have seen a multiplication of free software and the global movement of open data and open access involves a larger free diffusion of tools and data. This digital evolution has several consequences such as the erasure of the previous barriers between the different activities of the archaeological process (topography, archaeology, drawing…). On the one hand, it’s a way of developing individual skills but on the other hand, it’s shaking up the archaeological world: formerly, the skills and the tools used were linked to a well-identified activity or job. Currently some of the new tasks of the archeological process–related to the new technologies involved - are spread over several contributors who developed skills by themselves most of the time. Three observations can be made: - this situation is increasing the gap between the self-educated archaeologists and those who have more “traditional” ways of working - we need to redefine the jobs in order to propose, if necessary, a better sharing of the tasks and a better identification of the skills - we need to think about the training in archaeology taking the new skills needed into account.
The French National Institute for Preventive Archaeology is a public institution. It comprises around 2000 archaeologists who realize more than 2000 operations a year. In 2011, the institute has launched an important program to promote the use of GIS. In that perspective, means have been used for the definition of a further education programmes: four different programmes dedicated to the use of GIS (two levels), statistics and photogrammetry are offered. Nowadays, around 600 archaeologists have been trained. But the definition of the matter of the training sessions is based on a larger reflection about the digital technologies to be integrated. Choices have to be made.
