1st November 2011, 06:12 PM
Marcus Brody Wrote:I realise that I have no way of proving this as it's purely based on personal experience, but over the last 15 years I've come across a huge number of people with the letters 'IfA' after their name who appear to be borderline incompetent on site, and yet who seem to progress through the IfA grades regardless. Conversely, some of the best archaeologists I've worked for / with haven't been in the club, so I wouldn't accept that signing up is any kitemark of quality
Same experience entirely, except that the first (that I'm aware of) MIFA I came across who couldn't half-section a simple black posthole cut in yellow sand was way back in 1988, and it was still definitely the Institute of Field Archaeologists in those days, thank god (or whatever deity/philosophy of choice) they've given up on that pretence since it never did represent diggers (or anyone else likely to be found in a field) - look for any dirty-handed original self-validated MIFAs, you won't find too many, lots of managers though.....have the self-validated contingent ever been forced to go through the process properly, by the way, would hate to think that any of them might be still dictating to the membership who have been through the torture of the application process....