antiquarianism is alive and well.

[troll]

A cautionary tale for those of you who fancy a bit of digging abroad.Have just finished "digging" on a Chalcolithic site where the director (a classisist) showed about as much professionalism as an undergraduate custard maker. Was probably the most frustrating project I have ever been stupid enough to take part in.In short-utterly incompetent field methodology and a myopic hunt (through layers) in an attempt to locate "structures". Laughable recording system and hoardes of bewildered undergrads banned from learning anything or recording anything as "thats not what they are here for...". Seriously guys, a step straight back into the days of "two barrows before breakfast dear boy...". Hells teeth.Believe it or not, I actually cant wait to come home and dig something properly.As a hint-before committing yourself to any project abroad....have a good look at their previous excavation reports first.Having said that..am just off to sit under my favourite palm tree and wave at Syria thats only 60 miles away from the Med that my sweaty toes are about to dip into[8D]

..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)

[Taverna Cat]

Hey Troll,

As an archaeologist who specialises in Classical Greece, and therefore by loose definition a 'classicist' or classical archaeologist (if you want to pigeon hole me), can I just take exception to your need to define this guy by his background or area of research rather than simply as a crap archaeologist!

I have over 20 years experience of working in the UK with contract and University units carrying out urban deep strat and rural research excavations and I most certainly know my way around an archaeological site; indeed I teach archaeological skills at university.

I would also like to point out, that Mediterranean sites are not always excavated in the way you might expect in Britain, but that is because 'stratigraphy' as we know it, is not always in evidence. Sometimes it is just about moving dirt from the structures. You cannot always excavate a dry and dusty Mediterranean site in the way you would excavate in Britain - I personally hope that I never ever again have to spend a soaking winter in Glasgow bailing out my trench with a bucket and sponge!

All sites are different, and all site directors have different experience - we're all human after all. Embrace the differences and add them to your arsenal of fieldwork experience and stories to tell around the camp fire (like when I worked in Holland and the director, in his wisdom, decided to put the wet sieves in low-lying water next to the dyke and in the shade of the site hut where they never saw sunshine, and we all got trench foot!). I certainly wouldn't caution anyone against working abroad for this reason, and I can tell you that the students who will be working with me in Greece this summer will leave the site with skills they can take to any excavation...

Don't tar us all with the same classicist brush!

[Weegie]

Good point, TC.

As for having spent a soaking winter in Glasgow baling out your trench with a bucket and sponge - you were lucky. I can remember working on a site in the Briggait which froze solid for three months in 1981-82, and we had to burn the office furniture to keep warm.

[Taverna Cat]

Working for SUAT by any chance? The 'bailing' site in question was College Lands in the Trongate, though that must have been 1984. I always wondered why the office had no furniture...

[the invisible man]

A desk based assessment is one thing, but a desk based excavation.....

We owe the dead nothing but the truth.

[troll]

Mornin all. I don`t remember tarring everyone with the same brush.I`m sorry, but this guy could`nt spell "stratigraphy" if he tried."Clearing soil away" to get to the archaeology does`nt stand in this case and like you, I too have enough field experience to identify muppets from competent field archaeologists.Point taken however-my apologies to all classisists who were offended.That said, this bloke with over 30 years experience still does`nt get it-classicist/cake-maker/traffic warden or open heart surgeon-he remains one of the most incompetent field archaeologists of all time.My point overall was to prepare those who were contemplating work abroad.A last point is simply this-methodology is a tool kit for all sites and academics who choose to maraud through a foreign countries heritage whilst utterly rejecting even the most basic and universally agreed methodologies require our attention.

..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)

[Taverna Cat]

Absolutely. I was just miffed by the explanation for his incompetence seemingly being that he was a classicist, as though that needed saying. What difference does it make what he was?

I have to deal with this a lot as I work in a large archaeology and ancient History department where *some* of my archaeology colleagues presume that I'm some sort of historian and not a 'proper' archaeologist because I currently work in a period for which there are literary texts. However, just because my PhD was written on classical Greece, it doesn't wipe out my entire background as a field archaeologist, or indeed my qualifications in Bronze Age Greek subjects. If I thought for one moment that someone on one of my sites explained a questionable decision that I might have made by the fact that I was a 'classicist', I'd be mad...

Anyway, 'universally agreed methods'..? Unfortunately, very few countries excavate the way we do in Britain. I worked on a Greek site where they attempted to put MoLAS guidelines into practice and it was impossible. Different countries, different conditions...

[beamo]

Troll

Like you I have been on plenty of sites overseas and seen a few good directors but also many useless ones. Yes, Taverna Cat is right in that different sites can require adaptive methodologies, but a crap methodology is a crap methodology regardless of what sort of site it is used on.

On a separate thread we are discussing the relative merits of Single Context Recording and Single Context Planning - on some overseas sites the use of any context-based recording system would be a great step forward, as would the acceptance that a Wheeler-type box excavation system has severe limitations and can be adequately replaced by open-area excavation (especially if you have a decent set of diggers who are more used to this anyway). When digging with Germans (in or outside of Germany) it would be useful to be able to dig stratigraphically, rather than in clearly defined horizontal spits which pay no attention to cut features.


Beamo

[tom wilson]

I recall a passage in Archaeology From The Earth (Wheeler 1952-ish) in which he argues passionately that appropriate excavation and recording methodologies are no different in hot countries to those in England. If he could do it in India in the fifties, why can't we?
We can; much much better, in fact.

The claim 'there's no stratigraphy' is almost always an excuse for being incapable of seeing it. That said, thick cemetery and dark earth deposits in England often frustrate any attempt to see clear stratigraphy too, and yes, sometimes perturbations are so extreme as to result in thick soils with 'massive structures' (i.e. no strat). The correct strategy in such cases is to employ methods that maximise what strat you can find, when you find it, and only dig in spits until you see recordable changes (the top of a skull flying off the end of your mattock, for example).

While I'm at it, an excess of imagined strata is just as unprofessional as hacking it all out in one go (albeit rectifiable from the records).

[Taverna Cat]

I worked on a Neolithic fish-gutting site in the Netherlands (the one where I got trench foot - ah, the memories..) It was a heavily waterlogged site on thick brown clay, and no stratigraphy was expected or found. The strategy there was simply to go down in 1" spits and wet sieve everything that came out of each layer. In 6 months we found, in additional to all the coprolites etc, one tiny piece of amber and a legless body (an ancient one; not one of the diggers), but the spit method worked for us in this instance...