Is it me? the rise of teh "trainee"

[P Prentice]

And again I will return to my point that we need to stop seeing diggers as low skilled. They are very highly skilled, it is just their skills are in a different field to those of the report writing 'academic' archaeologist. So to be a Chartered Archaeologist you would need to have the digging skills of an experienced old hand, possess first class person management skills, financial management skills, a knowledge of the workings construction industry, be extensively read across the subject and have superb report writing ability. Well if that is the case they are going to be spread pretty thin across the country - maybe for the largest projects but a Chartered Archaeologist for every small eval and WB?

It has been my experience that those with the academic credentials get fast tracked into PO/Consultant/HER positions and are often significantly lacking in the skills that they really need. I would expect that the chartering process would mirror this. Those with an aptitude for writing fluently and eloquently will become chartered and little heed will be paid to the skill that actually matters the most, namely the successful retrieval of information from the site. Maybe this does just reflect my cynacism about the CIfA though.

i've never said that diggers are low skilled or that their skills are any thing less than those who write. those fast-track types you refer to are amongst the ones i would weed out. skillful digging is fundamental to an archaeologist. far too many miss these skills and cannot therefore do the office based ones correctly or from a position of understanding th limitations and nuances of digging. management skills do not come into it at all. you dont need to be a good archaeolgist to be a good manager. you do need to be a good digger to be a good planning archaeologist/mountie, or finds specialist. you probably dont need to be a good digger to be a consultant but you do need to be a good manager. i dont think management needs to be accounted for in the necessary qualifiacation to chartered archaeologist but digging certainly does.