6th September 2005, 08:58 PM
Hmmm, can i say both?
Yes in some ways it would be great to have a professionally qualified digging team, in which case we'd need to start paying our diggers somewhere around 20k, but it isnt necessary and anyway most graduates seem to be awful diggers.
You can be a professional digger without the degree qualification quite happily - many of my team for instance came out of the msc scheme in the 80's with bugger all in the way of o levels - let alone anything else, and have backgrounds in all sorts of manual jobs, but i'd still call them pro archaeologists.
The average digger, at the bottom of the pile, just needs to have some common sense and the ability to hold a shovel and dig a pit section. Plus have enough brain to recognise a bit of pot, bone or flint when they see it (no need to date or identify it, just recovery), and the ability to ask the PO what to do next if they're not sure.
Generally i like my team to have a mix of graduates and non-graduates - which tends to lead to a nice variety of people on site. I dont want a whole team muttering about the size of their student loans....
Yes in some ways it would be great to have a professionally qualified digging team, in which case we'd need to start paying our diggers somewhere around 20k, but it isnt necessary and anyway most graduates seem to be awful diggers.
You can be a professional digger without the degree qualification quite happily - many of my team for instance came out of the msc scheme in the 80's with bugger all in the way of o levels - let alone anything else, and have backgrounds in all sorts of manual jobs, but i'd still call them pro archaeologists.
The average digger, at the bottom of the pile, just needs to have some common sense and the ability to hold a shovel and dig a pit section. Plus have enough brain to recognise a bit of pot, bone or flint when they see it (no need to date or identify it, just recovery), and the ability to ask the PO what to do next if they're not sure.
Generally i like my team to have a mix of graduates and non-graduates - which tends to lead to a nice variety of people on site. I dont want a whole team muttering about the size of their student loans....