9th June 2005, 03:00 PM
Dear Digger
All of what you are saying now or has been said even in your forums (even the Time Team stuff)about British archaeology was said by me in a column called the "Dark Side of Archaeology" in the mid 90's that used to be posted on The Mining Company.com run by Kristen Hurst. It doesn't seem to be posted anymore but perhaps Ms Hurst can be persuaded to send you a link, archive or reactivate the site simply for adding to "the secret history of the archaeolgy". The site was similar if not the precurser to this one and my pseudonym was "Digger".
During this time I was contacted by the the Union of American Field Archaeologists who aked me to set up a chapter (section) for digging staff in Britain as the americans had suffered similar problems we suffered in a privatised fragmented deregulated industry and thought a bit of Anglo-Saxon solidarity would help - we are after all an international profession. They have done amazing things in the US for the site staff.I showed the documentation to many friends and collegues (when I was working)all thought it was interesting -other unions in the UK didn't cater to short term temporary site workers. Unfortunately at this period of time (96-9:face-thinks: most experienced people who were interested in joining were leaving the profession and the young and inexperienced still hadn't realised they were heading for the hard world of exploitation.The others were more interested in living in squats, growing dreadlocks, being "alternative" getting pissed or in the knickers of the nubile debutant. A chance missed?
I stopped the submitting the DSoA to the Mining Company when I moved to Switzerland because I lost contact with people in the UK and secondly didn't feel capable of commenting on the situation when I was no longer involved.
I see on your site that Shovelbums.com was founded in 1999 but it was in existence before that (perhaps with a different domain name) because I used to use it to apply for jobs in the US and Canada in the mid 90's.
Keep up the good work archaeology in the UK needs you.
Little Tim
All of what you are saying now or has been said even in your forums (even the Time Team stuff)about British archaeology was said by me in a column called the "Dark Side of Archaeology" in the mid 90's that used to be posted on The Mining Company.com run by Kristen Hurst. It doesn't seem to be posted anymore but perhaps Ms Hurst can be persuaded to send you a link, archive or reactivate the site simply for adding to "the secret history of the archaeolgy". The site was similar if not the precurser to this one and my pseudonym was "Digger".
During this time I was contacted by the the Union of American Field Archaeologists who aked me to set up a chapter (section) for digging staff in Britain as the americans had suffered similar problems we suffered in a privatised fragmented deregulated industry and thought a bit of Anglo-Saxon solidarity would help - we are after all an international profession. They have done amazing things in the US for the site staff.I showed the documentation to many friends and collegues (when I was working)all thought it was interesting -other unions in the UK didn't cater to short term temporary site workers. Unfortunately at this period of time (96-9:face-thinks: most experienced people who were interested in joining were leaving the profession and the young and inexperienced still hadn't realised they were heading for the hard world of exploitation.The others were more interested in living in squats, growing dreadlocks, being "alternative" getting pissed or in the knickers of the nubile debutant. A chance missed?
I stopped the submitting the DSoA to the Mining Company when I moved to Switzerland because I lost contact with people in the UK and secondly didn't feel capable of commenting on the situation when I was no longer involved.
I see on your site that Shovelbums.com was founded in 1999 but it was in existence before that (perhaps with a different domain name) because I used to use it to apply for jobs in the US and Canada in the mid 90's.
Keep up the good work archaeology in the UK needs you.
Little Tim
