11th February 2006, 01:02 PM
We may just find that some graduates choose to work in a grown-up world after experiencing current commercial field archaeology.The institute that alledgedly is for field archaeologists does it`s best to encourage migration from the field in imposing an arrogant and frankly,contrived validation system that clearly sees field archs of any length of experience as simple labourers.Apparently, one is not a real grown up professional archaeologist until one leaves the coal face.Oh, and by the way, standards are optional and, ones boss is likely to be incompetent too..This is the environment that grads encounter.Roy-I`m sorry (actually, no I`m not), field archaeology is a specialism and to be frank, had an awful lot of "grown-up/real archaeologists" bothered to master it, we would`nt be in the sh*t that we are today.Consultants who can`t see or even understand the archaeology, curators who only see it once for half an hour and never ask, unit managers who could`nt tell the difference between a pound of mince and a sunday newspaper.Sorry- not having that mate.Gettin sick of unit directors who cut their teeth in the 60/70s and still believe that we work in the same way.Also getting pretty fed up with people who claim to be archaeologists but would`nt understand the job if it bit them on the arse.All this and I`m one of those who came to arch in later life from other grown-up jobs.If an old scrote like me can see the current state of play, thats one thing but, for young and new graduates, our industry can be one of the most soul destroying environments there is. Unless we sort ourselves out, the new and qualified entrants to the profession will quickly see just what an unprofessional pantomime the industry is and well, get a real job really.
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)