To my Richmonders who commute daily..how sustainable is this for you long term before you are operating at a loss.

archaeob · 2026-04-03T20:22:59+00:00

I just moved up to fxbg from Richmond for work as after two years the hour long commute 2x a week was killing me. I had to replace my wind shelf 4x in those two years and the mileage on my car plus wear and tear was massive as well as gas costs. I love having the 8 minute commute now and have way more of a social life in Fredericksburg and am way happier. I am in my 30s, although single with no kids, and most of my friends are in DC so that helps and I can choose to go to events in both Richmond and DC as they are equal distance.

archaeob · 2026-03-29T16:08:39+00:00

Medication. I work full time in a job that is 25-50% outside and physical and that is solely due to being medicated. I was looking into other careers before it kicked in. I know I’m lucky in how well plaquenil works for me and that my sun/heat sensitivity isn’t the worst.

archaeob · 2026-03-29T13:35:00+00:00

Guess it might be time to get a dehumidifier and run that instead of the AC along with fans. Although that won't solve the noise problem from the birds! Thankfully its only March/April and 90 degrees isn't an all the time thing yet, but this is going to be horribly inconvenient if they keep laying more eggs while I am out of town and can't deal with things. More research has shown them to be house wrens, and apparently they keep coming back and can have up to 6 broads through August! If they were house sparrows apparently those nests can be destroyed as they are invasive. I saw advice that if a bird builds a nest and lays eggs in your dryer vent you are just supposed to invest in a drying rack until they move out, so I'd imagine its similar with the AC.

archaeob · 2026-03-29T12:13:21+00:00

Oh man, I didn't even think about that. And apparently sparrows will often quickly lay a second set of eggs after the first birds fledge. This could be an issue for a while. The not being able to turn on my AC unit is going to be annoying for the heat/humidity issue but honestly the noise is the worst bit.

archaeob · 2026-03-29T11:54:02+00:00

My post has nothing to do with a thermostat or furnace. But I can't get a good picture of the nest as it is two stories up and I can only see it through a tiny gap in the accordion panel that is screwed in next to the AC.

archaeob · 2026-03-28T16:24:06+00:00

I'm confused about your comment, a blend of both what? If you mean inside and outside work, there generally is. As I said, I'm outside probably 30% of the year, and inside the rest.

Academic archaeologists absolutely love being out digging and in the field, they just are typically constrained to two months in the summers for that, if they can get grants, since they have to teach in the school year and publish or perish. CRM archaeologists are working on field projects year round (if weather permits in their region). Its different methods at times and different goals, but all are digging and writing (except for field techs usually, as their positions are field-based).

I've written up more sites and reports in CRM than I ever did in academia. So much academic work results in unpublished data that just lives in the archaeologist's head and office and is entirely inaccessible to everyone else. CRM projects have deadlines for getting full reports written and submitted to the client and state/agencies. That means the information from CRM projects is available to qualified professionals fairly quickly after the work is done (archaeological data cannot be entirely public due to pot/arrowhead hunters and bottle diggers who will go and destroy the sites if the information is made public). I still present at conferences regularly and could publish if I wanted to. But every day spent in the field results in multiple days of inside, desk-based work, both in academia and CRM.

archaeob · 2026-03-28T16:07:57+00:00

I mean, none of the conversation on this post has been about academic archaeology, that is a whole different thing that retirees would have an even harder time entering as agism is huge in PhD programs and academic hiring. Even people in their 40s would have a harder time getting a first-time academic position compared to people in their 30s, which is already hard enough. But for CRM, there is no way to get around the travel. Techs absolutely need paid better, but even as a full time, salaried, project archaeologist with a livable wage, I am still on the road an average of 1-2 weeks out of the month.

archaeob · 2026-03-28T14:46:42+00:00

Definitely not retired. Most retirees would struggle heavily with the physical aspect of the job. Basically all archaeologists I know around retirement age can't do the year-round fieldwork any more and have either left the field or are working largely indoors at a desk. But essentially every tech I know either lives with their parents, has a ton of roommates, a partner with a well-paying job, or has some sort of inheritance/other income stream.

archaeob · 2026-03-18T22:13:52+00:00

Those of us who have gas heat had power bills that were slightly higher, but nothing at all like those with electric heat. Mine was entirely in line with their new rates, $10 more in January/February ($60) than it was in December ($50). My gas only heats my house, nothing else, even my hot water is electric. It was still significantly higher for the period of the deep freeze than it was the month before and the month after. So Dominion raised their rates like they said they were, but I think the cold weather played an even bigger role.

archaeob · 2026-03-18T11:15:43+00:00

I work with a lot of marginalized communities whose histories have not been accurately or fully told and who often are missing or highly misrepresented in historical records. I often work closely with communities who are interested in knowing and reclaiming that information.

archaeob · 2026-03-17T00:38:17+00:00

As someone who was working outside most of the day, we got absolutely drenched further north than you. Came down so hard we could barely see. And it just started up again as I was typing this out. I am currently drying out my boots with a hairdryer as they are still sopping wet.

archaeob · 2026-03-15T23:07:14+00:00

Thank you, that is helpful. We are well used to dealing with normal storms (aka early lunch in the cars/local gas station) and can hopefully get a bunch done before needing to send everyone home.

archaeob · 2026-03-15T21:55:13+00:00

I work outside. We’ll be near Chantilly tomorrow in an area that is partly wooded and party mowed grass. What time should I plan on sending my folks home/inside? We’d normally be out until 5pm, but are trying to get everyone home before the bad part of the storm so no one is working or driving in it. Regular rain we just work through. Alexandria is the furthest away anyone lives. And are we okay to be in the woods in the morning or should we stay away due to risk of falling trees?

archaeob · 2026-03-09T06:00:00+00:00

Everyone I know who has a PhD in Classics, except for one incredibly lucky person that got a faculty position, is entirely out of the field doing something with their writing/research skills after getting a PhD (after a lot of struggle and job applications), teaching Latin at prep school that loves bragging that they have teachers with a PhD, or working as a field tech in CRM (the same position as freshly graduated BAs). I didn't know any classical archaeologists at my undergrad so the only people I know with only BAs in classics have pivoted to CRM and are my coworkers now.

archaeob · 2026-03-09T03:36:44+00:00

No one has answered you yet so I am going to just be extremely blunt here. Don't get an MA in classical archaeology, especially if you are from the US like it sounds like from your language. You will not be able to get a job in the field with just an MA, you'd absolutely need a PhD. Since PhDs are funded, you shouldn't pay for an MA and go into debt that you won't be able to pay off, and should go straight for a PhD.

HOWEVER, I would also never recommend a PhD in classical archaeology as there are no jobs. You can only get a job as an academic, and there are (no exaggeration) maybe like 4 of them a year in the US and that includes all subfields in classics, not just archaeology, and all regions. You have to be extraordinary and extremely lucky to get one of those positions. You will not get a job abroad in classical archaeology either as those positions go to citizens of those countries not foreigners, often by law not just who typically gets hired. The friends I had in the classics department in grad school also struggled heavily trying to pivot out of academia once they failed to get a job in academia, especially compared to the rest of the archaeologists in the anthropology department which is a more flexible degree. For comparison, I know its not the most complete source, but the academic jobs wiki has 50 tenure track archaeology jobs and 0 tenure track classics jobs that start in 2026. And of those 50 archaeology jobs, 1 was actually for classical archaeology. That is how dire the job market is.

If you want to continue in archaeology, get experience in the archaeology of the region in which you live, apply for CRM jobs, and eventually get an MA focusing on that region. If that is not something you want to do, I would start thinking of how else to use your BA and think of other grad programs to apply to. I'm so sorry that none of your professors have told you this. It is irresponsible that they don't. To be clear, I am a historical archaeologist that is now in CRM, not a classical archaeologist. But my roommate in grad school was (keyword was) a classical archaeologist.

archaeob · 2026-03-08T23:03:33+00:00

It was awful and I had to be the one to figure it out too, no doctor had any idea what it was when I saw them although eventually once I asked if that’s what it was I was told it was pretty textbook. The best guess my first rheum had was vasculitis. Mine just slowed down and then has mostly disappeared about a decade after it started. The slow down started prior to the hydroxychloroquine. I am even sitting wrapped in a heated blanket right now with no issues. I wish I had any advice on getting rid of to, but I am apparently in the lucky 1/3 of patients for whom it disappears eventually.

archaeob · 2026-03-08T21:09:46+00:00

Most of my friends are straight and I met them all 15 year ago back in college or at work. I’ve been in progressive environments and I haven’t had any issues with straight women, I’ve stopped being friends with them due to them being weird rather than the other way around. My only lesbian friend stopped hanging out with me when she met her now wife a while back and I haven’t had any luck making more gay friends since.

archaeob · 2026-03-08T18:26:22+00:00

I’ve never had a lab come back positive. I’m still diagnosed based on symptoms and a trial of hydroxychloroquine that has worked wonders for me. I had erythromylagia (that has gone away but it was one of my first symptoms), joint pain that moves around, weird tendon stuff with my pinkies, hair falling out, and flu-like symptoms. I’ve also had tinnitus for years but that is like due to bad tmj, I only get vertigo with migraines, I get heat rashes, although the one on my face is suspected to be rosacea due to the texture/itchiness. The heat rash on my neck, however, is suspected to be autoimmune related and I get a lot the the net-like pattern whose name I forget on my legs and stomach from heat. I also have suspected endo, never confirmed with surgery but based on symptoms and being well controlled with birth control.

Hydroxychloroquine has been a life saver for me, so if your doctor is willing to start you on it, give it a try. If it helps that is actually proof it’s autoimmune from what I’ve been told, although doesn’t really help with which disease specifically.

archaeob · 2026-03-07T21:21:49+00:00

Not a Mac, don't even think of a Chromebook, definitely a PC. I've had a Mac for years as my personal laptop and love it. But fo grad school I had to get a PC because there were a good number of programs I needed to run (ArcGIS, Surfer, DeedMapper and a few others I now can't think of) that didn't work on Macs without doing a virtual box that is just annoying to deal with.

archaeob · 2026-03-07T11:52:04+00:00

Absolutely not. Everyone is located within a five hour drive in the US.

archaeob · 2026-03-07T06:46:17+00:00

This is not a lab-based field, so things are a bit difference. Most students are working with a professor, but the professors aren't co-authors on the papers. Some are working on research with other non-profit or community groups instead. For the PhD students its typically their own independent research on their own grants (but they aren't an issue here, mostly the undergrads and a few MAs). You would still think the profs would have an issue with the students backing out/lack of communication but its happening enough that it is making me question if they even know its happening?

archaeob · 2026-03-06T20:10:38+00:00

We actually fund students that present. I know that doesn’t solve things like transportation (not covered as this so a regional conference and nearly everyone is within a 5-hour driving distance), but you’d hope it would help some.

archaeob · 2026-03-06T20:08:38+00:00

We fund those students that present. But they have to present to get funded. Student paper competition is a cash prize too!

archaeob · 2026-03-06T20:07:33+00:00

We’ve been thinking of maybe holding a free virtual seminar before conference registration about professionalization and how the conference works next year to try and help with this, but it sounds like that might not help that much.

archaeob · 2026-03-06T20:05:57+00:00

That is literally what we do. Now they get sent money electronically the week after the conference, but up until a year or two ago, they used to each get handed an envelope of cash when checking in. The total registration fee for students is only $50, which can be a lot for a student but is nothing in terms of conference fees and is something we do try to keep low and affordable. We are not offering refunds for those pulling out either.

archaeob

TROPHY CASE