2nd March 2009, 01:15 PM
Seriously. Old man's rant coming up....
We wouldn't have been having this discussion 20 years ago. I remember sitting in a site hut on a particularly wet Orkney day in the early 1980s. To pass the time we decided to list all the different jobs that we had done in our time.
There wasn't a single person who had only worked in archaeology. I can remember amongst the jobs listed were social worker, turkey inseminator, oil rig worker, human tape worm analyst, sherry bottler, chauffeur, steel worker, shop worker, waitress, telephonist, soldier, rock musician etc etc. There of course is nothing wrong with having a more developed career structure in archaeology, but have archaeologists got so far from reality that we are unable to think outside of the confines of the job anymore?
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
We wouldn't have been having this discussion 20 years ago. I remember sitting in a site hut on a particularly wet Orkney day in the early 1980s. To pass the time we decided to list all the different jobs that we had done in our time.
There wasn't a single person who had only worked in archaeology. I can remember amongst the jobs listed were social worker, turkey inseminator, oil rig worker, human tape worm analyst, sherry bottler, chauffeur, steel worker, shop worker, waitress, telephonist, soldier, rock musician etc etc. There of course is nothing wrong with having a more developed career structure in archaeology, but have archaeologists got so far from reality that we are unable to think outside of the confines of the job anymore?
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...