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Costing and tendering for work up here seems to be a black art of delusion and misdirection.
We seem to do a lot of preliminary works, but have the actual excavation work stolen by a certain company that miraculously can do the job cheaper (somehow).
Guess they must be using students as slave labour, not paying the going rate, not paying for travel time etc, or must be begging more money out of the client later, or they are just not recording all the archaeology.
It's not a major issue, just an annoyance and a bit of a mystery to me how their tenders always seem lower than ours........:face-huh:
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Jack Wrote:Ah but what exactly is a 'neolithic pit?'
Being a bit old-fashioned I'm settling on anything that's a hole in the ground, round(ish) and comes in at c.4000-2000 cal.BC? Or am I doing it all wrong? What it all means seems to have been amply covered by numerous other authors recently
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Jack Wrote:Costing and tendering for work up here seems to be a black art of delusion and misdirection.
We seem to do a lot of preliminary works, but have the actual excavation work stolen by a certain company that miraculously can do the job cheaper (somehow).
Guess they must be using students as slave labour, not paying the going rate, not paying for travel time etc, or must be begging more money out of the client later, or they are just not recording all the archaeology.
It's not a major issue, just an annoyance and a bit of a mystery to me how their tenders always seem lower than ours........:face-huh:
maybe they are just better at it
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers
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Dinosaur Wrote:Being a bit old-fashioned I'm settling on anything that's a hole in the ground, round(ish) and comes in at c.4000-2000 cal.BC? Or am I doing it all wrong? What it all means seems to have been amply covered by numerous other authors recently
so you include early bronze age in neolithic then
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers
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P Prentice Wrote:so you include early bronze age in neolithic then
Well I definitely would...cos its unlikely that anyone sent out an executive order telling folk to stop using flint just because some bugger had invented bronze!!
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
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P Prentice Wrote:so you include early bronze age in neolithic then
No obvious difference around here apart from some of the pots being a slightly different shape and a round-barrow fixation (although they're mainly undated), and word about the shiny metal-stuff seems to have taken quite a while to get through - maybe 4000-1500cal BC would have been a more accurate range, certainly as far as pit-related activity goes?
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Dinosaur Wrote:No obvious difference around here apart from some of the pots being a slightly different shape and a round-barrow fixation (although they're mainly undated), and word about the shiny metal-stuff seems to have taken quite a while to get through - maybe 4000-1500cal BC would have been a more accurate range, certainly as far as pit-related activity goes?
you mean apart from them pesky beakers
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers
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So this is where an understanding of blurred chronology and overlaps as well as regional variation could be useful, one diggers Iron Age is anthers Romano British.
Would you call 500AD Iron Age for example.
This is a good point I think... so worth including.
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Quote:or must be begging more money out of the client later
how the same are the tenders? Some people bid rates , others price and then others combinations of rates and price. I do mostly rates. If you do then give examples of lowest likely cost and highest. I also recomend that when you lose a tender it worth ringing up and finding out why. Also watchout of those jobs where the client "has" got to get three tenders but has worked with some of the compertition before, I normally ask if they pay expenses for the quote.
Reason: your past is my past
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BAJR Wrote:So this is where an understanding of blurred chronology and overlaps as well as regional variation could be useful, one diggers Iron Age is anthers Romano British.
Would you call 500AD Iron Age for example.
This is a good point I think... so worth including.
Nah, Iron Age pits are bigger, can spot them, big enough to live in in fact...now there's a thought!
PP - yeah, some of the pits have Beaker in, and then they move on to bits of assorted urns and food vessels and random brown pottery - other than that the pits and the other stuff in 'em's exactly the same though, they even carry on doing them in pairs whatever that's about (have pit-pairs running from c.3700-1600ish cal.BC on the thing I'm currently writing up)
Now the really hot research topic is:- (dah dah da!....) when during the day do sheep, cattle etc like to drink? Dawn, dusk or at random points between? Anyone of a rural pursuasion (or nasty day-trip habits we don't wish to hear about) able to indicate a pattern? [a ref. would be handy]
