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+--- Thread: The School of Jack (/showthread.php?tid=4991)
The School of Jack - barkingdigger - 18th July 2013
Unitof1 Wrote:medieval abbeys tend to be insider public servant grant jobs or watching some drain run for a bog, which one you being doing. Stone drawing is a load of tosh, apart from it being part of the total ripoff that is building recording a subset of the history of art, you have the problem that each stone was probably laid one after another and should you work that out and then you have the problem of stones being inserted. Yes you can stand around drawing each one and thinking that your intimate association will lead to an enlightened phasing of it all in the end, if not by you but by somebody else or you could just say this phase that phase this phase, out line them as contexts give an excuse why you think that they are then give some description to each context and hopefully not have to draw a single stone. In Jacks world if you don't draw every stone presumably using a plumb line and grid and then taken a photo you are not an archaeologist, this unit culture has then been further cannibalised into Kevs world of total stations and photorectifcation where the methodology supersedes interpretation. It seems to me that archaeologists record their interpretation and should do so using what ever method they think appropriate. The curators/ like to chuck the phrase and justification " preservation by record " but they don't like remind everybody that that record is about an interpretation. Preservation by interpretation. Not do a half section because that is whats in the wsi and then it must have a picture even if that picture doesn't show anything. As an archive its not sustainable and can only lead to global warming and we don't want that do we.
Wow - Buildings archaeologists, Art historians, Surveyors, Curators, and folks who follow the rules - did you leave anyone out? That's quite a tranche of the profession to insult in only one paragraph!
We need to exert ourselves with good drawings, decent photos, and lucid context sheets precisely because we destroy the very evidence we seek. To wilfully do less would be somewhere between negligent and criminal. It doesn't exactly mean we need to draw every single stone, nor photograph every single feature, but anything we DON'T record may as well never have existed. So, more recording is always better for researchers than less.
As for the financial implications, that's what a well-costed tender is all about!
The School of Jack - BAJR - 18th July 2013
Quote:Wow - Buildings archaeologists, Art historians, Surveyors, Curators, and folks who follow the rules - did you leave anyone out? That's quite a tranche of the profession to insult in only one paragraph!
Really,.. ?? I can
and I agree with you
The School of Jack - P Prentice - 19th July 2013
unit - please continue with your provocative and stimulating critique, jack's school is clearly for the layman and a tad anchronistic, i fear he may do a harris matrix next
The School of Jack - barkingdigger - 19th July 2013
P Prentice Wrote:unit - please continue with your provocative and stimulating critique, jack's school is clearly for the layman and a tad anchronistic, i fear he may do a harris matrix next
What? Clutter up our "stories" with some awkward logic and facts? Never!
Besides, any Archaeologist worth his/her salt graduates from the Harris matrix to the Heras matrix! It's a bit of a bugger to carry round, but it sure looks impressive at conferences... :o)
The School of Jack - BAJR - 19th July 2013
Quote:What? Clutter up our "stories" with some awkward logic and facts? Never!
After teaching people the pencil way and the use of levels and the appliance of science ( or Harris ) over teh past week., in addition to digital survey with Penmap, a new system of OSL dating married with Bayesian Stats and C14 as well as other more modern techniques including Octocopter survey
I am happy in both worlds. and anachronistic I may be. But I still hold to the belief that to use the new... it is good to understand how it got there - certainly my students were happy to play with dumpies, plane tables and stadia tach as well as good old SOH CAH TOA and then press the button on the total station... knowing how and why the point appears, what you need to get that point, why you took the point there... and what to do if the winter storm washes away the section of tarmac road that your fixed points were located.
The button that says... Help... was no use :p
The School of Jack - Unitof1 - 19th July 2013
Quote:My total station interprets every point I measure.
the archaeologist is the measure of all things and you think a putting a machine somewhere creates interpretation. sorry I don't follow that , I think archaeology is all about discovery. Just shouting out aloud will do. have you found any gold- In fact discovery is everything. I haven't a clue what you lot think your doing ?recording?-
although princeses Prenticeseses help is appreciated.
The School of Jack - BAJR - 20th July 2013
Quote:you think a putting a machine somewhere creates interpretation. sorry I don't follow that , I think archaeology is all about discovery.
And Unit is right. it is about teh human ability to interpret.
ie... a laser scanner can "record" a building in a day. --- this is untrue. the building is not recorded, it is scaneed. no record of teh structure has taken place until a human - who is capable of actually looking and discovering has seen it, and investigated it in a way a laser scan cannot. THe tools may change but the interpretation should not. and therefore the need to understand the process should not either. The button presser knows only to press the button. the professional knows what to do before the button is pressed and what to do after.
The School of Jack - RedEarth - 20th July 2013
Unitof1 Wrote:.
the archaeologist is the measure of all things and you think a putting a machine somewhere creates interpretation. sorry I don't follow that , I think archaeology is all about discovery. Just shouting out aloud will do. have you found any gold- In fact discovery is everything. I haven't a clue what you lot think your doing ?recording?-
.
I think Jack is trying to produce robots, not archaeologists. Perhaps he should just invest in a load of laser scanners.
The School of Jack - Wax - 21st July 2013
Once checked two drawings by different people of the same area (training). One looked gorgeous, clean neat lines etc the other was scruffy . The scruffy one was actually a great interpretation and pretty accurate the neat one was wrong in ooh so many ways but visually you would have thought it was the better drawing. Taught me an important lesson.
Also spent nearly two weeks drawing every brick in acres of floors of industrial buildings (because I was told to). not as daft as it might seem as the buildings had been temporary wooden structures the floors were the only permenant bits and showed patterns of wear and the location of different processes. The act of looking and understanding what was seen was vital taking photographs would not have been enough.
Where does the school of Jack stand on the use of gridded paper under the perma trace as a guide? personally I hate it, a grid printed on the perma trace is one thing a bit of very stretchy paper is another. I always use a scale rule (unless provided with grided perma trace) and demonstrate to people the variances in the grid on a bit of graph paper. And no it does not take longer using a scale rule. Use of the right materials and tools and knowing why to use them is vital.
The School of Jack - kevin wooldridge - 21st July 2013
Unitof1 Wrote:. the archaeologist is the measure of all things and you think a putting a machine somewhere creates interpretation. sorry I don't follow that.......and clearly you don't even bother to read to the end of sentences!! I wrote 'My total station interprets every point I measure (I have a list of polygon, point and line codings as long as your angst), which then after processing through a GIS (at present Intrasis) transfers that information to an integrated database' .....The point of applying a coding to every point being that the 'coding'is the interpretation.....and its application, the interface between the archaeologist and the data.....that is no different to writing an interpretation of a structure or feature on a context sheet or in a site diary. I just write it directly into the TST....My GIS programme also has the facility for free text if the interpretation needs clarification or expansion. All I am actually doing different to David is cutting out the use of paper or film and shortening the process between data acquisition and a digital form of the archive....otherwise (at least to my mind), I still apply all of the principles and experience gained in all my years as a field archaeologist.....that said I think we are just discussing the recording 'media', other people might think this thread is about something different entirely.....