13th September 2004, 07:30 PM
Yes. it seems that archaeology is grossly under-valued, hence low salaries, poor conditions and lack of training. In one sense you are not alone - the trainee or gopher (how I started) has vanished from architecture, for example, in part due to the ending of the mandatory fee-scale system. Architects now have to tender for work, the cheapest invariably wins and, surprise surprise, jobs get under-resourced and no-one can afford to train up youngsters. You cannot get good technicians for love nor money any more and offices are full of contract South Africans and Aussies.
You don't have to indenture or enslave fresh talent. When it was commonplace to employ a trainee, sure, he/she is likely to push off to widen their experience (and to get more money). But you benefit from someone else's investment by taking on someone at an equivalent stage, trained up elsewhere.
I do believe that archaeology is under-valued across the board, as I say. Also, the point has been raised a couple of times before, but is the competitive commercial and basically artificial system we have the best way to carry out archaeology anyway?
You don't have to indenture or enslave fresh talent. When it was commonplace to employ a trainee, sure, he/she is likely to push off to widen their experience (and to get more money). But you benefit from someone else's investment by taking on someone at an equivalent stage, trained up elsewhere.
I do believe that archaeology is under-valued across the board, as I say. Also, the point has been raised a couple of times before, but is the competitive commercial and basically artificial system we have the best way to carry out archaeology anyway?