site tech role

[Dinosaur]

Sadly it looks like I'm going to end up with a rather slim collection of rather disparate dating info, stratigraphic/finds (ha, ha!..., what finds?...can hope some turn up, not a single sherd so far in 10 weeks from 10ha site covered in archaeology)/C14/OSL/logic from spatial relationships, so am grasping at straws! Cheers for the comments anyway :face-approve:

[Marcus Brody]

How can the real contribution of 'old diggers' and Field Work Experts be tracked and rewarded?

There was a suggestion made on another thread that all primary site archive material should be available online. While there would be issues associated with this (cost to digitise paper records, secure and long-term server space etc), this would possibly be beneficial in allowing the expertise of individual diggers to be recognised. For example, when applying for a job, you could provide the URL to the online archives of sites you'd worked on, or even to specific context sheets or plans, which would allow the prospective employer to see examples of planning, recording, interpretation etc. Indeed, depending on how these records were stored and accessed, it'd be possible to create a virtual personal archive of primary records from all the sites you'd worked on over the course of your career, by creating a portal site to combine all the records you'd created from the disparate site archives, wherever they were held.

[Jack]

your posts are never boring Jack - but some of the stuff you say counters the sway of your argument and could be read as uncertainty. i think you are secretly on the side of light and good. so step away from the dark side - it owes you nothing.... apparently

Arguments are never one-sided, just shades of evidence.

Its one thing to recognise what is wrong and should be changed. But to ignore the reality, shout at the oncoming tide to retreat is foolhardy. The wise protagonist chooses their battles carefully to win the campaign.

For light to exist their must be darkness.

[Jack]

As a slight digression, any of you clever mathematical types (I'd reached my limit at/before A level - solid D grade...) know if Baysian analysis can be used on OSL/TRM data etc (ie other dating techniques that produce statistical date ranges) and if so whether data from different techniques can be combined? - have a nightmare job where am going to get some OSL or C14 and occasional strat relationships, but not too many of any individual type, and pretty much no dateable finds unless things take a sudden turn for the better, but the possibility of some clever maths might affect what/how to dig

.

Bayesian statistics as I (imperfectly) understand them is all about combining different data without messing up the combined error expression. So yes you should be able to combine OSL dates with other stuff.

Not sure of the practicalities though, I've only done it with C14 dates. Check out Oxcal or the Sheffield Uni one...er..think its called BCAL.

If you've only got OSL dates for a single event but no other info you can do a 'pooled mean' of the dates to get a tighter range....I think

[P Prentice]

to get back to the thread, i will contend that our industry needs to attract and retain a wide spectrum of skills and ambition. we cant do this if we only make room for men who can shovel because all we will be left with is old men who used to be able to shovel. as an employer i want to be able to attract skilled field operatives as well as young feisty spunks who might just have something to offer if given the chance and i also want to see some of the knowledge and skills of the old lags evolve with the market into quality product. i dont think it helps for everybody to call themselves an 'archaeologist' because it applies to any tom dick and barry but i do think it would help every aspect of the profession/career for a chartered institute to acknowledge time served along with skills acquired - it can only benefit professionalism.

[Unitof1]

all sites are different, you get one crack at them, once you have lost the tender who cares what happens to them or what the people who undertake the work call themselves or what they produce. I see archaeology as pure descovery which is mostly a first come finders keepers activity. To do that you win by putting in the lowest tender.

[Dinosaur]

to get back to the thread, i will contend that our industry needs to attract and retain a wide spectrum of skills and ambition. we cant do this if we only make room for men who can shovel because all we will be left with is old men who used to be able to shovel. as an employer i want to be able to attract skilled field operatives as well as young feisty spunks who might just have something to offer if given the chance and i also want to see some of the knowledge and skills of the old lags evolve with the market into quality product. i dont think it helps for everybody to call themselves an 'archaeologist' because it applies to any tom dick and barry but i do think it would help every aspect of the profession/career for a chartered institute to acknowledge time served along with skills acquired - it can only benefit professionalism.

Clearly IFA's not fit for purpose then, given their view of diggers ('special interest group' and their retrospective invention of the PIFA grade when they realised grubby people were geting in as AIFA/MIFA) - chartered status would just give then the chance to create a fully-closed shop above a certain grade? (admittedly they'd still have to employ a few 'workmen' so they'd have something to manage) :face-stir:

[Dinosaur]

There was a suggestion made on another thread that all primary site archive material should be available online. While there would be issues associated with this (cost to digitise paper records, secure and long-term server space etc), this would possibly be beneficial in allowing the expertise of individual diggers to be recognised. For example, when applying for a job, you could provide the URL to the online archives of sites you'd worked on, or even to specific context sheets or plans, which would allow the prospective employer to see examples of planning, recording, interpretation etc. Indeed, depending on how these records were stored and accessed, it'd be possible to create a virtual personal archive of primary records from all the sites you'd worked on over the course of your career, by creating a portal site to combine all the records you'd created from the disparate site archives, wherever they were held.

Have you SEEN most people's context sheets? (ignoring literacy standards) - not sure how much of an employment aid they'd be! We've got a nifty little device for pdf-ing context sheets as security back-up though, quick and simple, just stick a pile in and it spits them out the other end while munching through oodles of memory on the server, even manages moderately grubby ones, so generating the data certainly isn't expensive, and of course drawings have to be scanned to be digitised, so that data already exists and usually goes off on a disk(s) with the archive

[Kajemby]

Interesting post from Jack....I was in conversation with a relatively senior archaeologist this past evening who told me he personally had instigated a policy of only employing recently graduated archaeologists and certainly none with more than 2 years field experience. His arguement to support this policy was that any archaeologist with greater than 2 years experience was overqualified for the posts he was offering (basically field assistant) and by that stage in their career should be motivated more by their career development than their need of a job.

I don't quite understand how this has turned into a 'cull everyone with more than 2 years experience' thread. I think the point my friend was trying to make (and with which I concur) was that he wasn't going to recruit anyone to the lowest grade of archaeological excavator i.e tranee, beginner, call it what you like, who had more than 2 years experience, I checked with him to clarify that he did not intend this of course for more senior positions eg supervisor, Ass Supervisor, Project Officer, specialist.

I don't quite understand how David can be against this proposal. Surely BAJR jobs stipulates that trainee posts should be for trainees and not an excuse to employ experienced staff on a lower wage?

I must be going mad, because how on earth can you be over experienced as a site assistant with two years experience? The more experience the better surely! "Site Assistant" should not be viewed as a "Training" position, as this is above the "Trainee" pay grade. If it is felt that recent graduates are essentially trainees, then they should be put on this pay grade. Logically according to your friend, you will have a site of trainees, run by one or two trained archaeologists (which I suppose is fine if the job wants to be done on the cheap).

If some one is employing trainees as site assistants, then this should be investigated by BAJR, as this leads to a nonsense in terms of pay grades; i.e, what on earth is the trainee grade for if they are being employed as site assistants? As experienced site assistants can be paid up to ?17,523.82, is this a way of keeping pay down by paying trainees the minimum site assistant rate of ?15,704.64 and passing them off as fully trained staff, when the reality is very different. :0

[Marcus Brody]

Have you SEEN most people's context sheets? (ignoring literacy standards) - not sure how much of an employment aid they'd be!

So wouldn't making them available online encourage people to think a bit more about what they're writing down and how clearly they're conveying information about the context they excavated? And wouldn't this also be helpful when writing up the site, by ending the scourge of the context sheet that's blank except for its number? If I knew that future employers might be able to assess the standard of my recording and interpretation before hiring me, I'd be tempted to do as complete and comprehensive a job as possible (which I always do anyway, of course)