Department of Agriculture

ARCHEOLOGIST

Delta, Colorado, Grand Junction, Colorado, Montrose, Colorado, Tangent, Oregon Full time

ARCHEOLOGIST

Department: Department of Agriculture

Location(s): Delta, Colorado, Grand Junction, Colorado, Montrose, Colorado, Tangent, Oregon

Salary Range: $74678 - $97087 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located in the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) State Resource Conservation. The incumbent serves as a Cultural Resources Specialist and is responsible for guidance and assistance to field personnel and resource technical teams for conservation, protection, and enhancement of cultural resources, including Native American issues, encountered in all NRCS programs and activities.

Major Duties:

  • Identify cultural resources and environmental issues and apply methodologies to address concerns.
  • Generate environmental review and various reports based on expertise in cultural resources and conservation.
  • Providing guidance and training on cultural resources issues to field office personnel to improve preservation of cultural resources.
  • Serve as liaison to government and tribal stakeholders involved with cultural resource issues to ensure program goals are met.
  • Make recommendations to field personnel regarding the treatment of cultural resources to achieve the desired preservation outcomes.
  • Check cultural resources reviews or reports written by field staff for technical quality.
  • Provide technical content for written cultural resource material such as contracts, environmental documents, or agreement documents to be used by internal stakeholders.

Qualifications: In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards. Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. If education is required or being used to qualify, you must submit a copy of your transcripts. Basic Requirement: Education 1. Degree: Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree that included a major field of study that included 3 semester hours each in the following course areas:-History of archeology.-Archeology of a major geographical area such as North America or Africa.-Regional archeology, archeological cultures, or sites in a specific part or portion of a major geographical area to acquire or develop a foundation for regional specialization for professional development.-Theory and methods of archeology. Methods include, but are not limited to, typology, classification, sampling, cultural evolution, diffusion, dating, and analytical techniques. -Archeological field school, to provide a basic understanding of theoretical and practical approaches to research design implementation, field preservation techniques, and report preparation by participation in actual field work. AND Six semester hours of related course work in: -geography, geology, or cultural history: - historiography, or historical archeology; -environmental studies; -scientific writing (nonfiction English composition); and/or-surveying; AND Archeological field school. 2. Related Curriculum -- Degree in anthropology (with emphasis on ethnology, physical anthropology, or scientific linguistics), history, American studies, or a related discipline may be accepted as satisfying in full the educational requirements, provided the curriculum supplied academic course work sufficiently similar to the requirements in A.1 (including archeological field school). OR B. Combination of Education and Experience: College-level education or training that provided knowledge equivalent to that described above, plus appropriate technical experience or additional education. OR C. Experience: Four years of archeological work experience that demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles and theories of professional archeology. The work experience must have included archeology field experience, which may include that gained in an archeological field school. Field experience should have included a combination of professional experience in archeological survey, excavation, laboratory analysis, and preparation of written materials. Applicants with such field experience should, after additional experience under the direction of a higher-grade archeologist, be able to demonstrate the ability to be a crew chief, directing the work of others at a single location as a part of a larger archeological project. In addition to meeting the basic requirement, you must also possess experience and/or directly related education listed below. Specialized Experience Requirement For the GS-11 grade level: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-09 grade level in federal service or comparable experience not gained through federal service. Specialized experience is defined as: performing administrative duties in support of conservation planning. Specialized experience is defined as experience assisting in conducting background studies and document reviews pertaining to archeological project development. This experience must include: 1. provide advice to leadership and/or agency officials responsible for broad program operations; 2. execute significant cultural projects affecting the welfare of the public and/or the sustainability of natural and cultural resources on the environment; 3. developing and coordinating networks and contacts beneficial to the successful performance of archeological work assignments, such as interacting technically with colleagues and supervisors, and demonstrating the ability to work cooperatively with other persons; 4. utilizing geographic information systems (GIS) to capture, store, manipulate and present spatial or geographic data; and 5. utilizing GPS software for mapping. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Time-in-Grade Requirement: If you are a current federal employee in the General Schedule (GS) pay plan and applying for a promotion opportunity, you must meet time-in-grade (TIG) requirements of 52 weeks of service at the next lower grade level (GS-09) in the normal line of progression for the position being filled. You must meet this requirement by the closing date of this announcement.

How to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all instructions before you begin. You must complete this application process and submit all required documents electronically by 11:59p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. Applying online is highly encouraged. We are available to assist you during business hours (normally 8:00a.m. - 4:00p.m., Monday - Friday). If applying online poses a hardship, contact the Agency Contact listed below well before the closing date for an alternate method. All hardship application packages must be complete and submitted no later than noon ET on the closing date of the announcement to be entered into the system prior to its closing. Resumes must not exceed two pages. This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this. To begin, click "Apply" and follow the instructions to complete the Assessment Questionnaire and attach your resume and all required documents. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.

Application Deadline: 2026-05-15