27th May 2005, 01:28 AM
Well said destroyer and well done.
Putting the stuff up on the wall will not work however.
When I was a proper archaeologist (you know badly paid itinerant) I had to an evaluation. What a cock up. I had to go to a historic town find I couldnt dig the trenches I was suppossed too (access problems)the machine was too big. I had no briefing no background no thing other than dig Xm of trenches.
In my lunch hour I went for a walk around said town. The diggers and management didnot under this. I had to right a paragraph on the topography and location - I would suggest an hour of my time was well spent doing this.
90% of the land was covered in green houses with exposed soil - so I did some field walking no artefacts found. One line in the report. Again diggers and management didnot approve of this (the curator did).
And so on so forth. At least I was experienced and could stand upto management pressures from both sides. These were the bad old days you know when it wasnot a right that developers should pay for archaeology.
I can recall bad and good practice on both sides both then and now. Like the diggers trying to wind me up because I was in a suit and had not been on site for a couple of days. I had been in Public Inquiry arguing the basic tenants of PPG 16 in Feb 1990.
I can recall a supervisor telling diggers in 1981 you are not paid to think.
I could rant for the UK on this. Lets have some balance about this. Are the youth of today (the supervisors) so uncommunicative with the diggers that they donot talk to them at least once an hour.
Peter
(Who has a day off tomorrow/today and should not even be reading BAJR)
Putting the stuff up on the wall will not work however.
When I was a proper archaeologist (you know badly paid itinerant) I had to an evaluation. What a cock up. I had to go to a historic town find I couldnt dig the trenches I was suppossed too (access problems)the machine was too big. I had no briefing no background no thing other than dig Xm of trenches.
In my lunch hour I went for a walk around said town. The diggers and management didnot under this. I had to right a paragraph on the topography and location - I would suggest an hour of my time was well spent doing this.
90% of the land was covered in green houses with exposed soil - so I did some field walking no artefacts found. One line in the report. Again diggers and management didnot approve of this (the curator did).
And so on so forth. At least I was experienced and could stand upto management pressures from both sides. These were the bad old days you know when it wasnot a right that developers should pay for archaeology.
I can recall bad and good practice on both sides both then and now. Like the diggers trying to wind me up because I was in a suit and had not been on site for a couple of days. I had been in Public Inquiry arguing the basic tenants of PPG 16 in Feb 1990.
I can recall a supervisor telling diggers in 1981 you are not paid to think.
I could rant for the UK on this. Lets have some balance about this. Are the youth of today (the supervisors) so uncommunicative with the diggers that they donot talk to them at least once an hour.
Peter
(Who has a day off tomorrow/today and should not even be reading BAJR)