Discovering the Archaeologists of Czech Republic

Results and Changes in Archaeology between 2008 and 2013

Jan Frolík

Institute of Archaeology AS CR, Prague, v.v.i.

Legal base for archaeology

- Law on Protection Historical Monuments (No. 20/87 Coll.), renewed in 1992

- Permit to conduct field research is issued by Ministry of Culture (archaeologist with two years of specialized experience, laboratory equipment, space for scientific study and temporary storages for finds, agreement with Academy of Science CR)

- An archaeologist – university degree in archaeology (Master‘s degree level)

- Archaeological excavations – paid by builders of projects for commercial purposes

Organization of archaeological work

- 3 levels of institutions - State - Academy of Science, National Institute for Preserving Historical Monuments, State Museums, Universities- Regions (14 regions in Czech Republic) Regional Museums, Institutes for Preservation of Archaeological Monuments- Municipalities – City Museums

- Comercial companies

Recent problems in archaeology

- Problematic law

- Effort to change archaeology into space of free market (elimination of scientific approach to field research)

- Economical crisis heavily decreasing amount of building and similar activities

- Disunity of archaeological community

Záchranné terénní výzkumy Archeologického ústavu v Praze – hospodařením

dědictvím a výzva pro teoretický výzkum

Positive moments

- Establishing of central evidence of all archaeological excavations (IDAV = internet database of archaeological excavations) in 2009

- Effort to prepare new law for protection of monuments

108/26 175/26 220/42 180/52 122/41 100/20 102/9 51/6

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Economical Crisis and Archaeology

Prot Univ Acad Mus Private Common Prot Univ Acad Mus Private Common

Institutions 2008/2013 Archaeologists 2008/2013

DISCOVERING 2012/2014questionnaires sent to 149 addresses75 answers (50,3%)missing data collected mainly from web

ARCHAEOLOGIST – 530persons working in archaeology - 952

DISCO 2006/2008136 addresses88 answers (64,7%)

425 archaeologists 666 working in archaeology

Institutions 2008 Archaeologists 2008

Institutions 2013 Archaeologists 2008

academy 16%

academy 1,5%

Founder / sponsor

Number of archaeologists No. of

organizations 1 Max. 3 Max. 5 Max. 10 Max. 20 More

than 20 State 3 2 - 1 1 1 8

Region 36 22 3 4 3 - 68 Municipality 8 3 1 - - - 12

University 3 1 2 1 4 2 13 Academy - - - - - 2 2 Private 1 5 5 2 1 - 14 TOTAL 51 33 11 8 9 5 117

In % 43,59 28,21 9,4 6,84 7,69 4,27

1 person 44%

Size of archaeological organizations

Founder / sponsor

Number of archaeologists at a workplace No. of organizations/archaeologists

1 Max. 3 Max. 5 Max. 10 Max. 20 More than 20

State 3 4 - 9 11 45 8/72 Region 36 50 13 30 48 - 68/177

Municipality 8 6 4 - - - 12/18 University 3 3 9 38 20 24 13/97 Academy - - - - - 83 2/83 Private 1 12 23 29 18 - 14/93 No. of

archaeologists

51 75 49 106 97 152 117/530

Expressed in %

9,62 14,15 9,25 20 18,3 28,68

max. 20 18%

Archaeological workplaces are mainly very small

- 71,8% less than 3 persons (75,2% in 2008)

- 23,8% of all archaeologists(30,3%)

Founder / sponsor

Men Women Count In % Count In % Total

State 44 13,02 28 14,58 72 Region 106 31,36 71 36,98 177

Municipality 8 2,36 10 5,21 18 University 66 19,53 31 16,15 97 Academy 54 15,98 29 15,1 83 Private 60 17,75 23 11,98 83

TOTAL 338 63,77 192 36,23 530

GenderIn 2013:

In 2008: 224 67,13 101 32,27 313

M F

2013 2008Increasing number of female archaeologists

Men and women in different age groups (2013):

In 2008 (%): 24,04 31,96 13,42 23,0 9,58 313

19,8/26,7 34,0/27,7 12,3/15,8 23,1/22,8 10,8/7,0

Male Female Total Archaeologists (373 persons)

44,3 46,1 44,9

Founder / sponsor

Age group Less

than 20 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 Over 60 Total

State 0/0 1/2 24/12 8/3 8/8 3/3 44/28 Region 0/0 7/3 22/11 12/8 9/4 9/9 59/35

Municipality 0/0 2/1 0/1 0/0 0/1 0/1 2/4 University 0/0 2/2 6/6 2/2 6/3 7/1 23/14 Academy 0/0 0/2 13/9 10/5 20/8 11/5 54/29 Private 0/0 15/10 29/7 6/4 3/3 3/1 58/23 Total 0/0 27/30 94/46 38/22 46/27 33/20 240/133

Men/Women in %

7,24/ 5,36

25,2/ 12,33

10,19/5,9 12,33/7,24 8,85/5,36 64,34/35,66

Both in % 12,6 37,53 16,09 19,57 14,21

Average age (2013):

In 2008 (313 persons) 43,5 40,5 42,5

Czech Republic

Slovakia Poland EU Non-EU Total

502 16 6 5 1 530 94,72 3,02 1,13 0,94 0,19

Country of origin (transnational mobility) in 2013:

In 2008: 306 4 2 1 0 313

Czech Republic

2013: 94,72% / 5,28%

2008: 97,75% / 2,75%

Increasing number of archaeologists of foreign origin (from 9 to 28)

Main conclusions - antagonistic results - strong influence of economical crisis x increasing number of archaeologicalinstitutions and archaeologists (from 425 to 530) and persons „working in archaeology“, too (from 666 to 952)

- completing of university chairs teaching fully or partly archaeology, increasing number of private companies and subcontracting companies

- too many archaeological workplaces are small (less than three archaeologists – 72%), but better situation than 2008 (75%)

- increasing number of female archaeologists but higher average age, very strong group in age 30-39, increasing (but generally small) number of archaeologists of foreign origin

- the new law for protection of monuments will decide about next development of archaeology – the most important decision for archaeology but prepared mainly out of archaeological community

Many thanks for your attentionfrolik@arup.cas.cz