28th August 2012, 01:25 PM
I'm surprised by Martin's desire to turn the clock back 30 years to "the good old days" before PPG16, when a handful of properly employed archaeologists (lecturers and museum staff in the main) were able to exploit eager Uni students by offering hard graft on below-minimum "subsistence" wages, and even secured the services of Deathwatch vollies who actually PAID to be abused in the trowelling line! Sites were often under little real threat, timescales were multi-season, and EH's predecessor DoE had an enormous budget by comparison to today. And since there were no legal Planning obligations to get in the way it was OK to have variable-quality data from a collectivist approach.
However, if we want to deliver quality products to time and budget in a modern world dominated by Planning requirements and strict H&S rules, we need more control than the old "circuit" ever offered. And the supervisory staff needed to train and shepheard volunteers properly costs money - can you convince the commercial client to pay extra for it? If not, why should the County Archaeologist agree to let the site be excavated by untrained vollies? Would you hire a contractor who rounded up stray untrained folk to install your plumbing? I remember once being told that the role of training in the PPG era was for the universities...
We do indeed need a proper system of training (and assessing!) new entrants to the paid profession (as well as progression for the well-established), but with the exception of specifically "community" projects outside the PPG/NPPF world I cannot see how the old-school hoards of local Rescue volunteers can fit in today.
Now I'm not saying archaeology should be a cut-throat commercial operation with room only for the pros - merely that archaeology in the UK has already spent the past two decades setting itself up that way and the predictable result is no room for training or volunteering. And ultimately the system is paid for by those who just want the obstruction removed, so there is no financial driver for improvement.
However, if we want to deliver quality products to time and budget in a modern world dominated by Planning requirements and strict H&S rules, we need more control than the old "circuit" ever offered. And the supervisory staff needed to train and shepheard volunteers properly costs money - can you convince the commercial client to pay extra for it? If not, why should the County Archaeologist agree to let the site be excavated by untrained vollies? Would you hire a contractor who rounded up stray untrained folk to install your plumbing? I remember once being told that the role of training in the PPG era was for the universities...
We do indeed need a proper system of training (and assessing!) new entrants to the paid profession (as well as progression for the well-established), but with the exception of specifically "community" projects outside the PPG/NPPF world I cannot see how the old-school hoards of local Rescue volunteers can fit in today.
Now I'm not saying archaeology should be a cut-throat commercial operation with room only for the pros - merely that archaeology in the UK has already spent the past two decades setting itself up that way and the predictable result is no room for training or volunteering. And ultimately the system is paid for by those who just want the obstruction removed, so there is no financial driver for improvement.