+- BAJR Federation Archaeology (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk)
+-- Forum: BAJR Federation Forums (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: The Site Hut (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?fid=7)
+--- Thread: A handbook for new diggers? (/showthread.php?tid=4412)
A handbook for new diggers? - Dinosaur - 29th April 2012
Sorry Unit, things involving sunshine will be further down on about page 38 (somewhere after how a bucket works), advanced stuff for beginning diggers!
The art department here has finally started using some brighter colours after years of putting up for no obvious reason with a palate of barely perceptible pale yellow, light grey and light blue which wouldn't photocopy. I find it quite refreshing! Now if we could just pursuade some journals to discover colour illustrations.....
A handbook for new diggers? - Unitof1 - 29th April 2012
page 38, be my quest
A handbook for new diggers? - Wax - 29th April 2012
I totally agree with Chiz with regards to interpretation, hand drawing gives an intimacy and understanding of the object or feature being drawn.
Dino's trowel skills are all skills (with one or two exceptions) that I had to find for myself. Being told or shown how to do it would have saved time and mistakes. I highly recommend the learning to use both hands for trowelling and no one should be shifting barrows or shovelling without proper instruction on manual handling.
Everyone sees colour slightly differently and it is sometimes very striking what people don't see. Improving general powers of observation would do a great deal for want to be archaeologists. There has been more than one occasion when I have found people, who I presumed were experienced, unable to see the slight changes in colour and soil texture that indicate different contexts and also unable to tell natural from disturbed.
A handbook for new diggers? - Dinosaur - 29th April 2012
I spent much of last year with a workforce (and assistant) who with one or two exceptions seemed to be unable to understand that if you dig a hole in gravel and then fill it in you, errr, end up with a gravel-filled feature, and they certainly didn't seem capable of seeing or otherwise finding them, all they could manage was removing the soily bits in the top where the gravel fills had settled - makes you weep.... :face-crying:
A handbook for new diggers? - Unitof1 - 29th April 2012
dino where was the sun....
A handbook for new diggers? - BAJR - 30th April 2012
Laugh not about bucket use. It is on my skills list.
If I may quote:
Novice – understands the purpose, but needs more practice in both usage and application : requires full supervision. Competent – Is able to use tool correctly however, may need some supervision
Proficient – can confidently use the tool without prompting and maintains the item with appropriate safety and maintenance procedures.
Top tips:
Bucket handles often come off, the best alternative is the ‘trug’, with moulded handles.
Fill it 2/3rds full, and remember a bucket will be heavy when full, so bend your knees when picking up and don’t overstretch when pouring out the contents on the spoilheap.
Do not keep full buckets on the edge of the trench, for both your safety and to ensure it does not collapse the section.
And to answer Martin... from what we have here... if there is a book out there that is showing people what to do then nobody is reading it.
A handbook for new diggers? - Dinosaur - 30th April 2012
BAJR Wrote:Bucket handles often come off
Only as a result of misuse! Chucking full ones at the spoil heap handle-first is the usual reason for detachment. Take a lesson from The Great Escape and look after them, or you too will be reduced to using your trouser pockets....and if you're using them as a handy way of getting out of the trench, DON'T STAND IN THE MIDDLE!
Unit - you mean I've got to actually commit pages 2-37 to paper first - eek! :0
A handbook for new diggers? - Jack - 30th April 2012
Dinosaur Wrote:I spent much of last year with a workforce (and assistant) who with one or two exceptions seemed to be unable to understand that if you dig a hole in gravel and then fill it in you, errr, end up with a gravel-filled feature, and they certainly didn't seem capable of seeing or otherwise finding them, all they could manage was removing the soily bits in the top where the gravel fills had settled - makes you weep.... :face-crying:
'....there are no bad pupils, only bad teacher.'
Mr Miyagi :face-stir:
Gravel sites are tough
A handbook for new diggers? - Jack - 30th April 2012
Unitof1 Wrote:maybe so rare in fact that taking a "sample" is not an aid to excavation and has little to do with identifying the context which is what the digger (field archaeologist) do-mostly by seeing, with a bit of touch and occational sniff and taste. Basically the sample is an artifact like any other find found in the context, and its the context that the digger does see.
and which is why mosts samples retrived from ditches only reinforce the bleeding obvious - that they had been a ditch fill. I had a brief the other day which said that I was to sample all peat deposits I encountered. I hope that a peat sample will come back as its not peat but something else and I will get to say chuck it because I was told to sample peat deposits. but then these brief writers like to let you know whoe is in charge
A post like this just reinforces the view that you have no understanding of what archaeology is, or what kinds of evidence are important. Or what is required in the regional research frameworks or why.
So the question is, why are you allowed to undertake archaeological projects?
A handbook for new diggers? - thehorribleknuckles - 30th April 2012
Not meaning to harp on about the laser scanning (although apparently I'm going to) but might we not be throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
In a system where competitive tendering has reduced budgets to the absolute bare minimum, the capacity to produce, in 20 minutes, a rectified photo which can be digitised brick for brick in CAD, a comprehensive level survey, AND a cool 3D picture you can zoom around sounds pretty appealing. Obviously someone then has to go round it all doing all the sheets and hammering out the matrix, as far as I'm aware they're a long way off creating a machine for that. If this is not done then information would certainly be lost, so make sure you do it!
It is absolutely right that all archaeologists should, when called upon, be able to plan complex structures; I happen to like drawing bricks and I'd be quite sad if I was completely usurped by cylon machinery, but technology does have it's uses. Industrial and Victorian structures are all too frequently only given scanty recording, and that's if they're not virtually machined away when the site is stripped. This seems to me like a pretty good way to get an accurate plan quickly, and not to have to explain to some developer who can't wait to see the back of you why you spent six weeks and thousands of pounds recording something that has been buried for less than 100 years.
I heard that at one unit it was common practise to create section drawings by digitising section photos: this sounds to me like a terrible idea as texture as much as colour can be what distinguishes one context from another: this would be a poor use of technology.
Laser scanning would be completely unsuitable for most sites, but where it would be useful, why not use it?