a field archaeologists lot....

[idontdodinos]

I started work at a commercial unit fresh from uni and I think I am being spoilt! I dread the day I have to work elsewhere as I have yet to experience many of the problems being discussed here.

The starting salary is around ?14,500 for newbie diggers and much higher for the more experienced diggers and those who have a useful specialism. Staff are encouraged to participate with the post-ex as much as possible. Some people will be data inputting, those with good illustration skills may be asked to draw small finds, others will be doing the GIS or analysing the skeletons. We all dig but many of us also do post-ex.

For example, I was asked, along with my co-worker who was working along side me, to do a matrix for a particularly complicated part of the site we had just finished. It was a daunting task as neither of us had done a proper matrix before. Our supervisor showed us what to do and helped us along the way. It was massive when we finished and really good experience for us both. We also learned the importance of filling in the matrix bit on context cards!

Since being asked to do part of the site matrix I have a much better understanding of why figuring out relationships is important and why sections have to dug in certain ways. I also fill in my context cards completely, else I be asked to do data inputting and find blank spaces which need to be filled. The prospect of having to trawl through countless other records to just find that one drawing number isn't appealing!

Why don't other units do this? I think we are better SA because we do have an understanding of the how and why of post-ex.

I'm not trying to show off but to show it is not all despair and gloom in commercial archaeology. There are good jobs in archaeology where the diggers are paid well, respected and given a certain level of responsibility.

[troll]

Holy sh*t!-gizza job!

[destroyer]

well that makes 2 of us idontdodinos. my unit does have a laudable policy in not laying diggers off and instead involving them in the post-ex procedures - be it the simple data entry to sorting out archives/illustrations etc. then when we do get back on site people have a far better grasp of what the team as a whole needs to be doing.

of course we have our old skool diggers who dont trust this newfangled technology such as pencils and paper and as as such prefer to bein the field all the time - not a problem as they always seem to be bloody useful practical blokes with a jcb etc.

training sa's to understand the wider aspects of the job tends to mean not sacking them just cos theres no holes to dig. give someone permancy and decent pay in their job and they'll become a more integral and aware member of the team. being a digger with a mortgage tends to give you ambition

[Curator Kid]

I think these last few posts are getting nearer to the heart of the argument. Digging holes is not the simple be all and end all of what being an archaeologist is about. There is much more going on, from understanding why you take samples and should fill in matrix boxes, right the way on to grasping the hows and whys of each site's development over time. Having this kind of knowledge and then applying it on site makes the whole digging experience much more fun too! I had to do six months post-ex when I was unable to dig through injury, and I found I was a much better digger after I'd been forced to work with the records that I'd made on site. Putting the paper record jigsaw puzzle back together off-site was equally as hard - if not more so - than it was to physically take apart on site.

Having said this, I find it a bit disturbing that those of us who do manage to move up the food chain a bit are suddenly assumed to be out of touch, uncaring and useless. Is the profession really moving along at such a pace that anyone who stops digging for four or five years becomes an old dinosaur? Or could it be that, as with any profession, career progression opens up a wider arena of responsibilities and opportunities to consider?

[deepdigger]

I see where you're coming from CK but, as promotion within the company is generally considered to be the result of either dead mans boots or backstabbing, the middle management are always treated with disdain and disrespect.

deep

[troll]

Curator-profound offerings there. Just to clarify, my point really is that to work as a field arch full-time should be seen as a career and a specialism in its own right. I by no means aim to denegrate the contribution of colleagues who work in allied fields of the discipline. I just find it hard to believe that probably the most important phase of the entire archaeological endeavour (systematic and scientific) recovery of data is seen as the cheap, disposable and largely contrived area of the discipline. As to the IFA, well, as an institute of Field archaeologists, I find it disturbing that there is one realistic grade for those who work in the trenches and, food-chain climbing seems to be facilitated when one moves further away from the coal-face. The "value" of field archaeologists is consistently belittled by the IFA and most consultancies who, without the "data collectors" would be out of a job-or, would have to make it all up (so I`m told....)

[deepdigger]

I don't think that i lack ambition, i just like playing in the dirt!

deep