Reflections

Women in the history of archaeology media portrayals   Women have held a role in archaeology since it first began to emerge as a discipline. In some case undertaking ground-breaking activity in research, excavations, and in some cases developing the forbearers of modern-day fieldwork techniques. But how have these actions been conveyed to the wider public? There are many established female scholars in both the history of academic archaeology, and currently researching today. While in developer-led archaeology the ground team is still chiefly comprised of women (Everill,2012), alongside post-excavation teams and project management. But how are these roles communicated to the public through various media? Archaeology is often touched upon in fiction, novels, films, and video games, but also documentaries. I should preface this chapter by recognising that of course standard fieldwork and research methodology does not create a fictional medium that can spellbind an unspecialized au...

    The conclusion of Everill’s study in 2012 shed some light upon the gender makeup of commercial archaeology and highlighted how the male gender remains promoted to the public as the image of an archaeologist. “The average British commercial archaeologist in 2012 is a white male. He is 38.38 years old – interestingly six years older than the result of the 2005 survey, further supporting the view of an ageing profession, with little intake of recent graduates. He has a degree, 10.74 years of field experience, and earns £20,000.” (Everill, 2012) Everill’s survey was completed by those working in or having recently worked in developer-led archaeology. While this has led to some more candid responses than those formally provided by organisations, as the Profiling the Profession surveys traditionally were, it does also result in a far smaller data set. But the trends seem similar. Both of which show there is a far closer balance between the genders than previously over the pa...