our story

The Center for Field Sciences (CFS) was established in 2021 by Ran Boytner & the Anthropocene Trust, at the peak of the Covid pandemic. Decline in funding, public support and tenured positions in academic archaeology accelerated during the pandemic and its aftermath. At the same time, funding for infrastructure, climate change and alternative energy resources began from governments and the private sector flooded the market – renewing infrastructure and adopting to climate change and energy production alternatives.

It became clear that a massive demand for professionals to complete Environmental Impact Reports (EIP) cannot be provided by the current number of existing professionals, nor by current training methodological framework. The traditional field training – the ubiquitous archaeology field school – is ill adapted to prepare CRM professionals. So, the CFS was created to address these challenges.

How can we train both academic and CRM archaeologists? First, by providing best-in-class training programs to students and others who wish to pursue a career in the discipline. CFS runs field programs directed by leading scholars from academic & the CRM sectors, and continuously peer-review each program. Second, we emphasize skill building in each of our programs so graduates could best demonstrate and communicate the specific career elements they learn at each CFS program. We partnered with Twin Cairns and use their Skills Log Matrix™ (see video) for each program. The skills are listed on each syllabus and students graduating CFS field schools get ranked on these skills.

Third, each CFS graduating student gets a free year of membership with the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA), with opportunities for continued education and personal development. Finally, we are working hard at minimizing costs of field programs, breaking barriers of entry and making field schools as affordable as possible. Our goal is to bring costs to near zero, so we may break the most significant barrier for entry to the field.