31st August 2012, 09:32 AM
BAJR Wrote:This is getting more into the issue. (thanks David for that post)
I think the issue comes down to the line:
Like a game of skills tennis. your problem... no your problem... etc...
Could it be 'our problem' a university dig, that is carried out in partnership with commercial archaeology? Thus broken commercials get to remember why they started in the first place... and get to slow down and actually dig archaeology and contribute to research... and conversely, the university dig benefits from having field archaeologists who do it all year round. Who have the skills ( for now) who can pass on the hints, the old lag wrinkles etc...
Is there something wrong with a joint exercise? I do know it happens...
I agree, I think whatever the solution is, it is going to have to involve partnership working. Like all these things it comes down to funding in the end. Certainly we in Durham have our own commercial field unit who leads on our field training (I think the set up is similar at Leicester). I certainly think the obvious people to teach field skills are those who use them all the time rather than for a couple of weeks every summer. The inevitable nitty gritty is in the detail- both commercial units and universities are generally running on pretty tight margins- I suspect most universities would find it tricky to pay market rates to contract a commercial unit to come in an do a joint-production. Equally, I don't know how many units are in a position to put in staff for at least three weeks pro bono (particularly as such a project may require a commitment over several years).
There are small pots of money around for some things of this nature (I'm working an application for funding for a post-grad training project for geophysics and earthwork survey bringing in community groups and are field unit for example)- however, in the current funding landscape it is increasingly hard to find funding for 'big digs' - the Silchesters, Stonehenge Riverside Projects etc are somewhat in the minority when it comes to university excavations in the UK. Whilst it might be nice in theory to get students training on lots of smaller projects, we are quite bound up by our internal rules on assessment; we need to ensure all our students get the same field experience and are assessed on the basis of the same experiences (and there is also the basic issue of training consistency - single context recording may be de rigeur in the UK, but colleagues working abroad might be using entirely different methodologies). This means we really need to give our students at least one big dig as their key training event
I'll respon to Wax's comment when I've done my next pile of marking!
D