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+--- Thread: Excavation Skills! (/showthread.php?tid=4079)
Excavation Skills! - Kel - 7th September 2011
- A good advance lesson, is that they need the right clothes. Waterproofs are vital, even in the summer. Sounds basic, but many rookie diggers on their first student site, assume that they'll be allowed to take cover at the first sign of rain. They need t
Excavation Skills! - monty - 7th September 2011
P Prentice Wrote:dont ever write subsoil
Why ????............... if it is subsoil call it subsoil !!
Excavation Skills! - Wax - 7th September 2011
How to complete a context sheet. Learnt how to do this as volunteer and later on EH training digs where some one actually sat down and went through all the basics. I have been able to adapt the basics to all the many and varied context sheets that have crossed my path.
Also bit of basic geology ie different types of soils and their structures and glacial features such as ice wedges.
Excavation Skills! - Dinosaur - 7th September 2011
Think I've pointed out somewhere on here before that an alarming number of diggers, even graduates, seem never to have actually read a 'grey' excavation report from cover to cover, if at all. A bit more of that and they might have some idea what the end product is that they're working towards, and then produce some site record etc a little more along those lines?....can live in hope, anyway.....
Still think a few practical 'non-archaeological' skills like the chemical toilet offering above would be handy too - tying knots that can actually be undone again in the only bit of section string on site, for instance, or how to make the b**tard pump work, and indeed how many things can, in fact, be fixed using nothing more than a trowel, 6" nail and 3lb lump hammer (or metric equivalents). These are the skills that make a digger stand out and get him/her re-employed next time around....
Excavation Skills! - BAJR - 7th September 2011
I do worry about lack of practical skills. and BAJR, will be moving forward with this. THis will be recorded on a skills passport. and this in turn will be matched with companies agreeing to accept a skill passport as a real record of skills gained.
Excavation Skills! - Sith - 8th September 2011
Dinosaur Wrote:Still think a few practical 'non-archaeological' skills like the chemical toilet offering above would be handy too - tying knots that can actually be undone again in the only bit of section string on site, for instance, or how to make the b**tard pump work, and indeed how many things can, in fact, be fixed using nothing more than a trowel, 6" nail and 3lb lump hammer (or metric equivalents). These are the skills that make a digger stand out and get him/her re-employed next time around....
Don't forget to have a cheap multi-tool and a roll of ducktape in your site bag. An ability to carry out creative bodges can soon make someone highly employable.
Oh, and if someone from the office calls and asks you if you've ever done xxxx, always say 'yes' even if your only experience was a couple of days on a student training dig.
Excavation Skills! - kevin wooldridge - 8th September 2011
I am guessing that you are looking for some 'excavation skills' that can be imparted in the classroom during term time, rather than those more suitable for the field school. My suggestion is a basic grounding in the principles of GIS and how that and and the single context record system/stratigraphic excavation/Harris matrix systems work. If its 'possible to do something more practical I'd suggest drawing skills and using site grids...plans, sections, profiles etc etc...and all the basics involved such as keeping your pencil sharp, how to rub things out, line levels, appropriate scales for different types of drawing, how much detail is needed, shading, hachures, one measuring one drawing procedures etc etc
Excavation Skills! - Jack - 8th September 2011
Dinosaur Wrote:Think I've pointed out somewhere on here before that an alarming number of diggers, even graduates, seem never to have actually read a 'grey' excavation report from cover to cover, if at all. A bit more of that and they might have some idea what the end product is that they're working towards, and then produce some site record etc a little more along those lines?....can live in hope, anyway.....
Absolutely spot on their Dino (for once!)
I never saw a 'grey' site report until I had to write one later in my career. All of a sudden I realised just how little I understood what we were doing on site. Many diggers think they have the right stuff to run and then write up an excavation. Very few do!
Excavation Skills! - P Prentice - 8th September 2011
monty Wrote:Why ????............... if it is subsoil call it subsoil !!
i knew it would be you
so what is subsoil?
Excavation Skills! - Dirty Dave Lincoln - 8th September 2011
How about real basic skills, like, hoeing? cleaning features prior to recording? and shoveling?