Is a decent specialist report a luxury?

[redexile]

Taking the construction industry as an example there is the Construction Skills Training Levy where all undertakings with an annual salary bill greater than about £75000 are legally required to pay a proportion to a centralised training fund.....a similar scheme for heritage bodies could be a way of ensuring that all archaeological undertakings in the UK contribute fairly and proportionately to the general training of the profession.....not quite sure how identification and payment to the construction scheme is administered, but I guess some kind of registration ala the IfA RAO scheme is involved...

Interesting - that does seem like a realistic way of doing it for archaeology, and there's a precedent. Has anyone ever mentioned this to the IfA?

[redexile]

A any TGM replacement should have been started on 30 years ago

This is the thing with pottery studies (and I'm sure applies to other artefact types as well) - you can get the basics, say the ability to identify 90% of the pottery types you're ever likely to see in a region (inland, anyway), really quickly, it then takes decades to get the other 10%. I've been doing it for 30 years and am still learning, and will continue to do so until the day I fall out of the tree. This, I think, is the basis of 'digger who can do pottery' syndrome. They probably know roughly what they're looking at 80-90% of the time, but they miss the important, unusual stuff, and the subtleties - there's a lot more to pottery than just identifying it. Even something a simple as differentiating between an early or late medieval glaze on the same pottery type is a knack it takes time and experience to acquire. To give an example, someone sent me 6 sherds of med pottery from Reading yesterday, all unglazed, grey/brown and boring. One had a few bits of shell in it, popped it under the microscope, it's London fabric SSW, and the first time it's been found in Reading, altho it's turned up on a few other sites in Berks. Now, I doubt TV crews with be hammering on my door anytime soon, but it's another dot on the distribution map, and a tiny incremental advance in human knowledge. Or they could have given it to a digger and who'd have said '6 sherds of medieval pottery' instead, and saved themselves £10. This is what gets my back up, I think, it's ultimately tiny amounts of money that they're saving.

[Dinosaur]

...although digger experience/knowledge counts as well, knowing (or suspecting) at the time of excavation what might be important, and e.g. taking those extra soil samples. I've always tried to at least have a working knowledge of what all those various specialists do and are interested in, what can and can't be done (the budget can be argued out with the client later - ooh, that's going to get responses!) and what current research themes are topical, am constantly horrified by the poor general archaeological knowledge of many site staff and even supervisors/POs/directors. As a for-instance, I've had several conversations with diggers and POs who seem to be unaware that the way we all pretty much dig sites in Britain these days, in plan/single context etc isn't the only way to do it, many of the 'old ways' are still entirely valid merely unfashionable - who still leaves baulks in for instance?...despite the fact that they're still the best check when you realise that maybe what you thought was happening isn't.... however, I'm rambling, so :face-topic:

[redexile]

... however, I'm rambling, so :face-topic:

you and me both, it's far too easy to do! Back on topic, Mike Heaton has written and presented some very interesting stuff about the way we should be funding/charging for archaeology, although in his own words "but no amount of proselytising seems to make any difference. I'm still a nutter as far as the 'establishment' is concerned" But that's ok, the same applies to me and Chris. There seems to be a growing number of us 'nutters' out there. Check out Mike's paper - [SIZE=2]'W(h)ither the Profession II: The economic, legal and organisational context of successful commercial archaeology' (Paper given at Annual Conference of the Institute of Field Archaeologists, Swansea University, 18-20 March 2008). [SIZE=3]It's very good stuff, and was greeted by the IfA with their usual reaction to such things, which was to put their hands over their ears and go "la-la-la-la-la-la-can't-hear-you"[/SIZE][/SIZE]

[kevin wooldridge]

Interesting - that does seem like a realistic way of doing it for archaeology, and there's a precedent. Has anyone ever mentioned this to the IfA?

The Construction industry scheme is based around National Occupational Standards (NOS) the same as the IfA NVQ scheme. I don't think therefore that much work would be required to create an archaeological training programme, but finance, getting blood out of the 'commercial' stone, is a bigger stumbling block. Mind you if the IfA membership as a whole were to vote that RAO status necessitated contributing a training levy proportionate to turnover, that scheme might actually serve a useful purpose.......

[redexile]

Ha, think we know the answer to that one then. Interesting stuff though, thanks Kev, one for the notebook and ultimately our paper, I think

[Dinosaur]

Spent part of yesterday afternoon looking at recent(ish) grey lit reports online (actually I was looking for something else but bearing this thread in mind, rare bit of male multitasking?), and am I wrong or is there a gradient in specialist reports in PX assessments from south increasing in quality/quantity to north across England? (sorry BAJR, didn't cross the border into Scotland) - although don't get me wrong, some 'southern' ones were fine (and some 'northern' ones were b****y awful!), just seemed to be a vague general trend. Do curators in the north of England have higher expectations? Have no idea what Specs issued by curators in the South/Midlands look like, but certainly the ones around here (mostly familiar with Yorkshire and the NE) usually specify specialist involvement so its written in from the start, the contractors know what they're tendering for and the client knows what they'll be having to pay for from the outset

[kevin wooldridge]

Spent part of yesterday afternoon looking at recent(ish) grey lit reports online (actually I was looking for something else but bearing this thread in mind, rare bit of male multitasking?), and am I wrong or is there a gradient in specialist reports in PX assessments from south increasing in quality/quantity to north across England?

Its probably coincidence seeing that 5 of the 6 largest archaeological contractors in the UK are based south of the Trent-Severn watershed....if there is going to be be big piles of shit all over the place, it's more likely to derive from where the elephants live!!.....

..........but if there was more than synchronicity involved, it would seem to be a good argument in favour of a national rather than regional or locally based curation standard. Surely it should be possible (specifically in the case of ceramics but maybe with wider implications) to have a number of regionally based 'ceramics advisors', much in the same way as EH used to have regional scientific advisors. These could act as 'first point of contact', academic referees and co-ordinators of training etc as well as specialists in their own right. A small stipend from EH or IfA to secure their services and then the normal fee base for advice or action (which as Paul suggests could be as little as £50 depending on what is involved). They could also provide a referral service to other suitably experienced ceramics advisors where and when required.....

[BAJR]

I do believe that some of these suggestions and comments should be placed in front of the IfA

I will contact Paul as well to let him see this thread

[Wax]

I do believe that some of these suggestions and comments should be placed in front of the IfA

I will contact Paul as well to let him see this thread

you can lead a horse to water.............................
Still worth trying though