15th February 2014, 09:24 PM
Sikelgaita Wrote:Noooo.....(wails and gnashes teeth in despair).
The most important people on site are those that actually excavate and record the archaeology. Without the technical skills of those (old school) diggers there is no record with which a 'CIfA approved academic archaeologist' can work.
My biggest problem with the IfA is that its expectation of what an archaeologists career should look like is far too academically oriented. This IMO alienates a large number of potential members. Why cannot an archaeologist be recognised as a MIfA purely on his fieldwork skills. Not everyone can or wants to write reports but this does not in any way make them less worthy archaeologists.
My point is that without aspiring to write up,what you dig you betray your own interpretation as it becomes second hand, it is not enough just to dig, you have to,know what your digging and how it fits into the wider picture ie you need to write up things!