11th May 2012, 01:01 PM
gonetopot Wrote:.......................<snip>
It would be nice to see if Sheffield and ither universities wiuld consider similar courses for the likes of small finds, fir which there is a massive shortage of specialists, or pottery, which has many aging specialists that keep suffling their mortal coil. 'Young' specialists in these areas tend to be in their 30s, myself included; I encounter a few students at conferences and workshops, usually pursuing specific dissertation topics on pottery etc, but it would be nice to see some specific academic training in the fields that might feed into the wider sector. Just a thought.
Yes we are all worried about what will happen when a certain Yorkshire-based early prehistoric pottery specialist (and general god of prehistory) moves on to the great museum store in the sky. He needs to train a young apprentice, or a lot of his knowledge will be lost.
I suspect this problem is fairly widespread in archaeology.
Maybe archaeologists should be cryogenically frozen when they reach a certain age so they can be preserved then defrosted when death has been cured..............or easier still, have their brains downloaded onto a virtual store, so future researchers can pop in and have a chat.