Crumbling Old Ruins*

[Marcus Brody]

Being of the none recent graduate category and the returning to archaeology one as well I have a disctinct feeling that the current age "trend" is based on those with any get up and go do just that and those who hang on for grim death in the hope of something better are the ones still there, irrespective of age, year after year suffering the terrible conditions.

and..."diggers may find their skills more valued, with companies keen to hold on to good people"...well, I'd like to think so but after my year of experiences I rather think I'll be part of the get up and go brigade!! I would laugh if it wasn't so disapponting and sad

As someone who's worked in archaeology for the last 15 years, I'd obviously not agree with the suggestion that the only reason I still do so is because I lack the necessary 'get up and go' to do anything else, rather than it being something I still generally enjoy, and that I think I'm good at!

I think that a lot of people go into archaeology with unrealistic expectations - as has been noted before, some people assume that they'll be running their own sites straight off the bat, rather than accepting that they'll start out as one member of the team and may have to put in several years before they'll be in charge of an excavation. I think that this sort of attitude can apply regardless of the age of the person, and indeed, it can be more pronounced among people who come to commercial archaeology later in life, or who have previously held high-powered positions in an unrelated sector - I've certainly experienced people who seemed unwilling to accept that they needed to start at the bottom and would be working under the direction of someone younger who happened to have been working in archaeology for longer. While outside experience can obviously be very useful in terms of bringing different ideas about how things can be done, it would be unrealistic for someone to expect to be put in charge of a site simply because they'd previously managed an IT team (or something). While they would have experience of management, they probably wouldn't yet have sufficient archaeological experience to run a site.

I think it's good to have a range of different ages and levels of experience on a site, but I think that those that stick at it tend to be those who go into commercial archaeology with their eyes open to the realities of the sector, regardless of the age at which they start.