Hi,

For post graduate courses in Archaeology, all the candidates are required to have minimum of bachelor's degree in any stream. But students with streams like sociology, history, anthropology also always preferred.

Thera are basically 5 courses related to Archaeology in India :-

Courses in Archaeology

Diploma Courses in Archaeology

M.A. (Archaeology)

M.A. (Ancient Indian History and Archaeology)

Post-Graduate Diploma in Archaeology

Just like any other course, they too have their own set of eligiblity criteria :- If you want to pursue any Bachelor's course in Archaeology the most basic requirement is 10+2 with history as one of the subjects.

To get job in ASI you will have to appear in either Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) or State Public Service Commission’s (SPSC) exam. Your performance would decide whether you will get the job or not.

As far as the pay is concerned well its not much. Pay in ASI starts with Rs 10,000 and goes up to Rs 30,000. It may have increased after the last pay commission.

If you don't get a job in ASI then you have the option to work for an museum. Several museums also conduct their own research at various excavation sites. Its great to see that you are interested in Archaeology and wish to work for Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Being a Archaeologist is tough business. You have to be very patient as some of your research may require years to complete.

For example, the work on the excavation sites takes years to complete because the process to dig out the sites is a very slow. In many occassions it is done by hands with great care so that nothing gets damaged during the excavation.

Luckily we live in country which is haven for the people related to Archaeology field. There are not just hundreds of temples, monuments that date back thousands of years but several other excavation sites in India that are enough to keep every single Archaeologist in India busy for rest of his life.

However saying that being an Archaeologist is not a easy job. You will have to study some very complex inscriptions and translate them at the same time the observation of artifacts excavated would take a lot of time to understand.

Hope this helps.