30th April 2005, 11:25 AM
I started work at a commercial unit fresh from uni and I think I am being spoilt! I dread the day I have to work elsewhere as I have yet to experience many of the problems being discussed here.
The starting salary is around ?14,500 for newbie diggers and much higher for the more experienced diggers and those who have a useful specialism. Staff are encouraged to participate with the post-ex as much as possible. Some people will be data inputting, those with good illustration skills may be asked to draw small finds, others will be doing the GIS or analysing the skeletons. We all dig but many of us also do post-ex.
For example, I was asked, along with my co-worker who was working along side me, to do a matrix for a particularly complicated part of the site we had just finished. It was a daunting task as neither of us had done a proper matrix before. Our supervisor showed us what to do and helped us along the way. It was massive when we finished and really good experience for us both. We also learned the importance of filling in the matrix bit on context cards!
Since being asked to do part of the site matrix I have a much better understanding of why figuring out relationships is important and why sections have to dug in certain ways. I also fill in my context cards completely, else I be asked to do data inputting and find blank spaces which need to be filled. The prospect of having to trawl through countless other records to just find that one drawing number isn't appealing!
Why don't other units do this? I think we are better SA because we do have an understanding of the how and why of post-ex.
I'm not trying to show off but to show it is not all despair and gloom in commercial archaeology. There are good jobs in archaeology where the diggers are paid well, respected and given a certain level of responsibility.
The starting salary is around ?14,500 for newbie diggers and much higher for the more experienced diggers and those who have a useful specialism. Staff are encouraged to participate with the post-ex as much as possible. Some people will be data inputting, those with good illustration skills may be asked to draw small finds, others will be doing the GIS or analysing the skeletons. We all dig but many of us also do post-ex.
For example, I was asked, along with my co-worker who was working along side me, to do a matrix for a particularly complicated part of the site we had just finished. It was a daunting task as neither of us had done a proper matrix before. Our supervisor showed us what to do and helped us along the way. It was massive when we finished and really good experience for us both. We also learned the importance of filling in the matrix bit on context cards!
Since being asked to do part of the site matrix I have a much better understanding of why figuring out relationships is important and why sections have to dug in certain ways. I also fill in my context cards completely, else I be asked to do data inputting and find blank spaces which need to be filled. The prospect of having to trawl through countless other records to just find that one drawing number isn't appealing!
Why don't other units do this? I think we are better SA because we do have an understanding of the how and why of post-ex.
I'm not trying to show off but to show it is not all despair and gloom in commercial archaeology. There are good jobs in archaeology where the diggers are paid well, respected and given a certain level of responsibility.