8th April 2009, 03:01 PM
That sounds far too ridiculous to be true, even if it were 500 volunteers in shifts. There must be more to it than that (please God I hope so). Surely the curator isn't going to allow something like that to happen (see the other thread on curators, standards and claims about the level of experience of staff ,never mind volunteers on site). I've no objection to the notion of volunteers on commercial projects, unless it means professional and already downtrodden archaeologists aren't getting the chop as a result.