The goal for many PhD students in archaeology is tenure-track employment. Students primarily receive their training by tenure-track or tenured professors, and they are often tacitly expected—or explicitly encouraged—to follow in the footsteps of their advisor. However, the career trajectories that current and recent PhD students follow may hold little resemblance to the ones experienced by their advisors. To understand these different paths and to provide information for current PhD students considering pursuing a career in academia, we surveyed 438 archaeologists holding tenured or tenure-track positions in the United States. The survey, recorded in 2019, posed a variety of questions regarding the personal experiences of individual professors. The results are binned by the decade in which the respondent graduated. Evident patterns are discussed in terms of change over time. The resulting portraits of academic pathways through the past five decades indicate that although broad commonalities exist in the qualifications of early career academics, there is no singular pathway to obtaining tenure-track employment. We highlight the commonalities revealed in our survey to provide a set of general qualifications that might provide a baseline set of skills and experiences for an archaeologist seeking a tenure-track job in the United States. Doctorantes en arqueología comúnmente anhelan lograr empleo académico con tenencia docente. Los estudiantes de doctorado principalmente reciben formación académica y profesional por parte de profesores que al igual han obtenido o anhelan obtener empleo con tenencia docente. Comúnmente, se espera tácita o explícitamente proseguir en pasos de sus asesores. Sin embargo, la trayectoria profesional de estudiantes doctorales y recién egresados suelen tener poca semejanza a las trayectorias de sus respectivos asesores. Encuestamos 438 arqueólogos en plazas con tenencia docente o con posibilidad de tenencia docente en los Estados Unidos para esclarecer diversas trayectorias profesionales y asesorar actuales doctorantes que contemplan una carrera académica. La encuesta que se llevó a cabo en 2019 plantea una variedad de preguntas acerca de experiencias individuales de los encuestados. Los resultados se agrupan por década en cual se egresó el encuestado. Se discuten los evidentes patrones conforme cambios cronológicos. Los resúmenes de trayectorias profesionales académicas a lo largo de las últimas cinco décadas indican que aunque existen características compartidas en las cualificaciones de los recién egresados académicos profesionales, no existe una ruta singular hacia un empleo con tenencia docente. Resaltamos las características compartidas entre los encuestados para presentar cualificaciones que pueden ser un punto de referencia de las destrezas y experiencias adecuadas para un arqueólogo en busca de tenencia docente en los Estados Unidos.

Few researchers have investigated shell midden sites in western Ireland. Here, we discuss the geoarchaeological approach undertaken at an Atlantic Ocean-facing dunefield shell midden site in County Sligo, Connacht. Ground penetrating radar, magnetic susceptibility, and apparent electrical resistivity were used to map subsurface features and identify possible locations for subsequent augering. Our results show that magnetic susceptibility was the most successful geophysical technique in terms of the identification of shell-rich deposits and hearth locations, indicating the value of this method for future studies in dunefield midden sites. Most of the midden material in the dunefield was found to be surface scatter subject to substantial mixing by aeolian events, common in stormy northwestern Ireland. This study illustrates the unique challenges and productive approaches to geoarchaeological surveys in dynamic dunefield environments and discusses insights into post-medieval exploitation of coastal environments in rural western Ireland.

We sampled individual growth rings from three ancient remnant bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) trees from a massive buried deposit at the mouth of the Altamaha River on the Georgia Coast to determine the best technique for radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dating pretreatment. The results of our comparison of traditional ABA pretreatment and holocellulose and α-cellulose fractions show no significant differences among the pretreatments (<1 sigma) thereby suggesting that ABA pretreatment will prove sufficient for the development of a high-resolution ¹⁴C tree-ring chronology based on these ancient bald cypresses which will indicate whether the U.S. Southeast is subject to a regional radiocarbon offset.

Oral history indicates that a large wooden trough held in storage at the University of Kentucky’s William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology was a component of the saltpeter mining operation in Mammoth Cave in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, worked largely by enslaved persons. We used multiple heritage science methods, including radiocarbon wiggle-match dating, tree-ring dating, scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDS), and optical scanning, combined with historical research, to examine the trough. Our analysis supports the oral history of the trough as an artifact of the mining system in Mammoth Cave. This case study illustrates how heritage science methods can provide corroboration for the origins and biographies of poorly documented historical artifacts.

Bald cypress ( Taxodium distichum ) is the longest-lived tree species in Eastern North America, but coastal cypress forests are vulnerable to a range of environmental factors [D. W. Stahle et al ., Q. Sci. Rev. 34 , 1–15 (2012)]. Here, we present analyses of bald cypress trees from a subfossil deposit at the mouth of the Altamaha River on the Georgia Coast, United States. Shifts in tree lifespans and growth rates correspond temporally to the onset of the Vandal Minimum environmental downturn, c. 500 CE. Trees that sprouted after c. 500 CE had significantly shorter lifespans on average (470 y). Trees sprouting after c. 500 CE also grew significantly faster than those that sprouted before this point. Bald cypress lifespans at the Altamaha River mouth never recovered to pre-Vandal Minimum levels and, in fact, continued to decrease significantly over time. The last long-lived trees retrieved from the deposit died at the beginning of the Little Ice Age, another major climatic shift. This study suggests the enduring, localized impacts of climatic downturns and indicates the vulnerability to climate change of coastal cypress forests of the Southeast. These conclusions pertain to this location and, perhaps, other near-coastal forests. In remaining pockets of old-growth forest with bald cypress in the Southeast, 800 to 2600-y-old trees are still proven to be alive [D. W. Stahle et al ., Q. Sci. Rev . 34 , 1–15 (2012); D. W. Stahle et al ., Environ. Res. Commun. 1 , 1002 (2019)].