It depends where one wants to dig. Excavations in some countries like Greece and Israel regularly take volunteers with no dig experience, whereas it’s very difficult to join a dig in Iraq even as an archaeologist. The AIA fieldwork opportunities page is a good place to start.

Local workers are usually hired for digging.

• The square is excavated from north to south using shovels, pickaxes, or hoes. Usually only a 5 or 10 cm layer is removed at a time, since you want to be able to quickly identify any changes in soil texture or material culture indicating that you’ve moved from one period of occupation into an earlier one.

• All of this dirt is shoveled into buckets (guffa in Arabic), and the buckets are loaded into wheelbarrows.

• Each of the buckets is dumped into the sifter and examined for bones, seals and seal impressions, beads, potsherds, and other small objects.

• The square is swept clean after completing a pass so that it can be photographed.

• Any architecture (stone or mudbrick) or statuary we come across is articulated. This is usually done with a trowel and a stiff brush.

Typically each square has one or two archaeologists and three or four workers. I like to get down and dirty and dig as much as possible too, but a lot of my time has to be spent doing paperwork (mapping the square, packaging and labeling artifacts we find, recording details about soil color and texture, etc.).

Additionally, a couple of local villagers are hired to cook meals and wash pottery.

Willingness to be attacked by mummies, endure curses, be first in line for spike traps, rolling boulders, swinging blades etc