Can Agents Work?

Jobs / Science and research / 19-3091.00

Anthropologists and Archeologists

Study the origin, development, and behavior of human beings. May study the way of life, language, or physical characteristics of people in various parts of the world. May engage in systematic recovery and examination of material evidence, such as tools or pottery remaining from past human cultures, in order to determine the history, customs, and living habits of earlier civilizations.

US jobs
8,990
Median wage
$70,770 a year
Job family
Science and research

Can agents do the work of anthropologists and archeologists?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Science and research:

  • Task levelPartialThin evidence. CORE-Bench asks agents to reproduce the results of published papers in computer science, social science, and medicine from the authors' code and data. Princeton's HAL team declared it solved in December 2025: Claude Code with Claude Opus 4.5 scored 95.5% after manual regrading. No benchmark in our collection tests new experiments or lab work.
  • Project levelNot yetThin evidence. On PaperBench, where agents replicate machine learning papers from scratch, the best official result is 26.0% (o1, April 2025). On a small subset, ML PhDs scored 41.4% against o1's 26.6%. No newer official results exist, and no benchmark tests research projects in other sciences.

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in science and research, not always this occupation's tasks.

  • CORE-Benchby Princeton UniversityTask level · CORE-Bench-Hard accuracy (public test set)
    95.5%Claude Code + Claude Opus 4.5 (after manual regrading) · 3 Dec 2025
    Solved
  • PaperBenchby OpenAIProject level · Average replication score
    26%IterativeAgent o1-high (36h limit) · 2 Apr 2025
    Emerging

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Collect information and make judgments through observation, interviews, and review of documents.
  • Teach or mentor undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology or archeology.
  • Write about and present research findings for a variety of specialized and general audiences.
  • Plan and direct research to characterize and compare the economic, demographic, health care, social, political, linguistic, and religious institutions of distinct cultural groups, communities, and organizations.
  • Create data records for use in describing and analyzing social patterns and processes, using photography, videography, and audio recordings.
  • Train others in the application of ethnographic research methods to solve problems in organizational effectiveness, communications, technology development, policy making, and program planning.
  • Identify culturally specific beliefs and practices affecting health status and access to services for distinct populations and communities, in collaboration with medical and public health officials.
  • Apply traditional ecological knowledge and assessments of culturally distinctive land and resource management institutions to assist in the resolution of conflicts over habitat protection and resource enhancement.
  • Lead field training sites and train field staff, students, and volunteers in excavation methods.
  • Conduct participatory action research in communities and organizations to assess how work is done and to design work systems, technologies, and environments.
  • Develop and test theories concerning the origin and development of past cultures.
  • Research, survey, or assess sites of past societies and cultures in search of answers to specific research questions.
Other job titles for this occupation (28)

American Indian Policy Specialist · Applied Anthropologist · Applied Cultural Anthropologist · Archaeologist · Communication and Folklore Specialist · Forensic Anthropologist · Historical Archaeologist · Research Archaeologist · Researcher · Anthropologist · Archaeological Field Technician · Archaeological Technician (Archeological Tech) · Archeologist · Cultural Resources Specialist · Cultural Resources Technician · Egyptologist · Ethnoarchaeologist · Ethnologist · Excavator · Field Archaeologist · Investigator · Medical Anthropologist · Physical Anthropologist · Policy Specialist · Political Anthropologist · Project Archaeologist · Public Policy Specialist · Research Anthropologist