How Many Archaeologists are in the US?

A crowd of archaeologists

A few weeks ago I was discussing how many archaeologists there are in the UK, 'Profiling the Profession' puts the number in 2012-13 at 4,792. Doug Rocks-Macqueen (June 18, 2014) asks "http://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/how-many-archaeologists-are-in-the-us-more-than-a-couple-less-than-there-should-be/" . He finds that federal government employs roughly 1550 people to undertake archaeological work, estimates that there are roughly 1600 academic archaeologists and 850 state and tribal archaeologists. He also finds that there are "at least 7,000+ private sector archaeologists employed by 1600+ CRM firms" involved in development-driven mitigation work. The total he arrives at (with various caveats) is c. 11,030 - which is not a lot when considering the size of the territory.