10th May 2005, 12:11 AM
Curator-profound offerings there. Just to clarify, my point really is that to work as a field arch full-time should be seen as a career and a specialism in its own right. I by no means aim to denegrate the contribution of colleagues who work in allied fields of the discipline. I just find it hard to believe that probably the most important phase of the entire archaeological endeavour (systematic and scientific) recovery of data is seen as the cheap, disposable and largely contrived area of the discipline. As to the IFA, well, as an institute of Field archaeologists, I find it disturbing that there is one realistic grade for those who work in the trenches and, food-chain climbing seems to be facilitated when one moves further away from the coal-face. The "value" of field archaeologists is consistently belittled by the IFA and most consultancies who, without the "data collectors" would be out of a job-or, would have to make it all up (so I`m told....)