11th September 2005, 11:11 PM
Thankyou-I look forward to any ideas. I do hope that you don`t feel that I have declared open season on your goodly self here but, I must disagree on a fundamental point made in your last post. I still don`t understand why an experienced archaeologist is expected to take on formal responsibility. We take responsibility for what we do the moment we set foot on site. I am arguing that an experienced archaeologist (qualified or not) should be rewarded for their value to the team without being expected to move away from what they do best. By all means, those that choose to do so and, are encouraged by their peers to become supervisors etc should go ahead.Those that choose to remain at the coal face should be able to do so too. Given the choice, I too would happily choose an unqualified but experienced and skilled archaeologist over and above a green graduate. Here lies the conundrum-what do we want at the coal face? Lots of green types or, skilled professionals? All I am asking is that professional field archaeologists who choose the specialism as a career should be valued and paid as such-rather than the current system that really only recognises one as a "proper/better" archaeologist when they climb the dizzy heights away from the coal face. There are plenty of us out there who are perfectly capable of functioning in roles that some would see as "above our station" and indeed, have done so plenty of times. An archaeologist who has worked as a supervisor/PO/principal but, chooses to stay at the coal face would in my opinion, make for an extremely valuable field specialist....