For me personally that distinction is a bit blurred because I have several friends, all came from the archeology branch, but they do not do field work (at least how we usually undersand that). One of them is expert in bronze age metallurgical analysis, and his work is mostly chemistry (he holds a dual degree). Another is specialized in a particular writing style (“procesal encadenada”) used mostly for legal documents around the XV century, which is notoriously hard to read, so they call her for transcriptions whenever someone uncovers a ream of old codicils or such.
In spain all these jobs are archeology. They study the changes in society through what they left behind.
But I guess maybe the distinction is that Ferguson covers a more modern period?
In my understanding, as an archaeologist working in Germany and Norway and with a solid understanding of the system in the UK in addition to that, the first person would be an archaeometallurgist, archaeometrist or indeed an archaeologist if they wanted to call themselves that.
The second person would be a palaeographer, textual historian or material philologist. They would definitely not be considered an archaeologist in the traditions of any of the countries above.
Material culture that has survived without being deposited in the ground is generally not the domain of archaeologists, but rather art historians, material ethnographers or architectural historians.[1]
Anthropology is its own field with its own methodology. Archaeology is distinct from it, as are museum studies.[2]. So I wouldn’t necessarily call him an anthropologist. Firearms historian, material historian or just museum curator is probably most accurate.
However, I do understand that the Spanish system is a bit different. I have a (Spanish) friend who I definitely consider an archaeologist
and who works with archaeological materials (though not generally in terms of fieldwork) who got her academic start as an art historian.
Of course there are exceptions to this which are too tedious to get into here ↩︎
In the American academic tradition, archaeology is seen as a subset of anthropology, but I not only vigorously disagree with that, it’s also irrelevant in this European context ↩︎
I DO have archaeologists scratch scratch archeometallurgist and paleographer friends, but I’m not myself one, so my understanding of the field is… lacking
And I totally empathize with the feeling. I’m tired of being called the informático -lit: computerist-, a word that seems to encompass anyone who knows electronics, systems engineering, domain administration, graphic design, computer customer services and many more unrelated fields!
His page (which appear not to have been updated in some time) lists one archeology publication, bus several more in Arms and Armor RA’s inhouse journal.
‘Lochailort, Highland: Archaeological Metal Detecting Survey, Post-Excavation Archive Report’, CFA Archaeology Report No. 1932. Chapter 2. The small arms-related assemblage, by Jonathan Ferguson pp.4-9, 2011.
