Are University Archaeology Programs Preparing Students for Employment Effectively?

Archaeometry is the study of archaeological artifacts and ancient materials, with the goal being to create a historical record by determining the age and origin of these specimens.¹ Spectroscopic techniques have played a role in advancing this field, and they have been used to help us learn more about the ancient past.

Training the next-generation of spectroscopists to continue work in this field require mastering non-destructive techniques and applying them in the study of specimens. But are there other benefits that current archaeometry programs offer students?

In this “Pathways in Spectroscopy” clip, Mary Kate Donais, a Professor at St. Anselm College,² elaborates on this topic, talks about how archaeometry and cultural heritage analysis programs also prepare students for other career paths.

Spectroscopy: Spectroscopy touches archaeology and cultural heritage analysis. How well are programs preparing students to work across these two disciplines?

Mary Kate Donais: Specifically, archaeometry research is very specialized, but it is a field that gets students excited about conducting research. And so, I'm usually not at all lacking research students, which is great. I love that archaeometry is somewhat forensic-like in that it deals with unique samples that are potentially valuable different ways. Instead of serving as evidence for solving a crime, it's something of cultural value, so it is valuable in a way that makes these samples irreplaceable. As a result, the approaches that we use with non-destructive techniques with careful handling of the samples are very similar, and the kinds of questions that we're trying to answer in archaeometry can be similar to those for solving a crime.

In the forensic realm, we just want to know if the sample is found at the crime scene. Does it match the sample that was found as evidence from a suspect? So archaeometry is more of that: is A different than B, or is A and B the same or similar enough that we can call them the same? Answering these types of questions is a lot of what we do in archaeometry, and so I think this field is relevant to our students that are wanting to go into forensic analysis.

This is the fifth part of our conversation with Donais. She and her team published an archaeometry paper several years ago, and it is listed under “Further Reading” for easy access.³

References

(1) Thermo Fisher Scientific, Archaeology & Archaeometry. Thermo Fisher Scientific. Available at: https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/industrial/spectroscopy-elemental-isotope-analysis/geosciences/archaeology-archaeometry.html (accessed 2026-06-10).

(2) Saint Anselm College, Mary Kate Donais. Anselm.edu. Available at: https://www.anselm.edu/about/campus-directory/mary-kate-donais (accessed 2026-06-02).

Further Reading

(3) Jackson, M.; Perrelli, D.; Shelley, J. T.; Donais, M. K. An Archaeometric Investigation into the Former Cataract House Hotel via Elemental Analysis. Spectrosc. Suppl. 2022, 37 (s11), 12–16. DOI: 10.56530/spectroscopy.sh9983a2