One Minima to Rule them All

[Marc Berger]

That's cause you have to reference back to the ifa use of the words formulation and cost or you could try morphe excavations although it suggests that evaluations are optional...But I agree dino everybody is making it up as they go along producing their own fantasy of what commercial field archaeologists do and why anybody would do an evaluation particularly so called curators who have little responsibility for archiving. Obviously there are evaluations where you find something which the landowner does not have the money to handle. You have to stop the evaluation before you have collected so much material that can't be paid for. Other than that you want a fair assessment of number of features and a lot of features may have very little regional research significance but will still have to be dug, depths, ease of digging where what facilities are there to take advantage of...suck eggs

Not sure that the curator makes any planning decision, as I understand they inform the planning authority, but realy what we want is to do is the excavation before the application, hay?

[monty]

so you are suggesting that an evaluation can produce archaeology without excavation or rather the evaluations that you undertook were excavations?

Of course evaluations produce archaeology though this does not always lead to excavation !

[Sith]

*​the formulation of a strategy to initiate a threat to the archaeological resource

Was that a Freudian slip Marc? The Standard and Guidance actually states "The formulation of a strategy to mitigate a threat to the archaeological resource" }

[Jack]

Of course evaluations produce archaeology though this does not always lead to excavation !

Other than the fact that everything we do produces 'archaeology'; archaeology being:
"
noun 1. the scientific study of historic or prehistoric peoples and their cultures by analysis of their artifacts, inscriptions, monuments, and other such remains, especially those that have been excavated.

2. Rare. ancient history; the study of antiquity."





I would hope no evaluation, be it a walkover survey or trial-trenching, would 'produce' archaeology, unless done by cowboys being paid per feature, The archaeology is there before we get there........an evaluation should evaluate any archaeological remains present. Or at least evaluate the presence of archaeology.

[Marc Berger]

​

the formulation of a strategy to initiate a threat to the archaeological resource

ha ha seems to have been dragged around a lot of the web like http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/files/1...ations.doc.

although I might of over egged the evaluation isn't an excavation maybe another way of putting this view from the self employed against the salaried world is would you think it is a good idea to undertake an excavation based on an evaluation carried out by somebody on some "pay minima"? As far as I see it if you have a "pay" structure which basses it financial predictions on an assessment process (like an evaluation) but then that assessment leads to a system of "salaried pay" based around "excavation" but that its system of "pay" is consistently being considered to be wholly inadequate by bajr or the ifa then either the evaluation system is not doing its "job" or the salaried system is not suitable to the assessment system....

On one side paying the minima would conform to the PPG16 view that an evaluation is a an inexpensive method and presumably the minima of the lowest grade member would suffice. The ifa (lets have a agreement on bajr that we will never call them cifa or is that sypha) but the ifa set the guidance's with a members are not equal or rather some members are more equal than others. They have got their new charter colours up on their web pages for salaries http://www.archaeologists.net/practices/salary but there is little mention of evaluation on it which isn't odd because they just don't get it because they are still trying to ram a public service salaried pension denial that the world they are trying to fight, which is that archaeologists should be self employed, is actually at this very moment shoving everybody down zero hours contracts and from what I understand the zero is a total two fingers up to salaries. Another thing about the ifa and jobs to remember is that unlike bajr they charge people to access their jobs adverts and they don't recognise their own pay minimas (?).

Where I might be misleading myself is that zeros hours contracts might be a good thing for claiming "benefits" where as being self employed is most certainly not good for claiming benefits (or rather its bloody difficult to get good support and advice from the ifa on being self employed). Does the benefits system suffer two week zero hour contracts? Possibly what I should do is set up a limited company and employ myself on zero hour contracts?

The archaeology is there before we get there........an evaluation should evaluate any archaeological remains present. Or at least evaluate the presence of archaeology.

how do you know that its there before you get there? you on some pay minima or something

[Jack]

​
......

how do you know that its there before you get there? you on some pay minima or something

I worry about your lack of understanding of cause and effect. Time is indeed relative to your velocity and position of observation, but without engaging my time drive, the remains that I excavate and record were created before the trench is even opened, whether the trench is opened or not.

Just hop onto my time machine and I can prove it.

[Marc Berger]

you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat? and you probably don't think that what we do is preservation by copyright.

[Dinosaur]

​ how do you know that its there before you get there? you on some pay minima or something

In a field where ploughsoil directly overlies undisturbed natural, there's still archaeology - the ploughsoil is an anthropogenic deposit, the product/evidence of centuries of agricultural endeavour, and therefore pretty much by definition archaeology? Not very interesting, I grant you, but still an archaeological deposit. Suppose if your site consisted of bare rock you might get away with suggesting an absence of archaeology? (but check carefully for rock 'art' and the like)

[Marc Berger]

I am in full agreement Dino. Jack said

the remains that I excavate and record were created before the trench is even opened, whether the trench is opened or not.

which I don't agree with I would suggest purely for tax reasons that the archaeology was created when the trench was opened and recorded. In your case of

if your site consisted of bare rock you might get away with suggesting an absence of archaeology? (but check carefully for rock 'art' and the like)

I would suggest that the archaeology is in recording that it is bare rock, and having undertaken observations that there were or not rock art presence. Obviously I would pad out the report with the suggestion that ideas initiated in the Neolithic lead to erosion of any theoretical previous over lying soils and might suggest that down slope deposits might show an accumulation from such events. This report would have the word copyright in it some where and I might also attempt to sell it VAT free as it seems to me that it is cartographic in its elements and new knowledge. As to minima pay not sure what grade should take this project on with.

Just out of interest has anybody applied for grants for SME http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk/financing...nt-grants/ it seems to me that they are very anti sole trader but could be twisted for mico enterprise like specialist support.

[Jack]

you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat? and you probably don't think that what we do is preservation by copyright.

I am well acquainted with said feline. However, the (fictional) analogy of superposition doesn't actually mean that the cat doesn't exist until you open the box....its actually an expression of the difficulty of 'scaling up' the micro-scopic quantum world and it's weirdness into our macroscopic world. It seems (according to wiki - my physics is way old now) to be accepted that his logic problem was asking the question when does superposition of states end.

The analogy of opening a trench 'producing' archaeology in our macroscopic world therefore doesn't apply.

I think what your inferring is closer to Heisenberg's principle, or the uncertainty principle where pairs of attibutes are linked by quantum effects meaning you can't measure one without altering the other....for instance measuring the position of a particle affects its spin etc.

The only way Heisenberg's principle applies to digging an evaluation trench (What you mean, I think), is that the act of recording changes the archaeology being recorded.

Which is actually something different entirely called 'the observer effect' which does apply to the macro world. As in you change something by measuring it, e.g. measuring the amps in a circuit changes the volts.....etc.

People often misunderstand saying that this means we can't record things (or shouldn't). But what these principles are all about is errors and uncertainty. You know that annoying stuff that comes with all science that archaeologists often ignore: levels of uncertainty.....

(from Wiki)
In metrology, physics, and engineering, the uncertainty or margin of error of a measurement is stated by giving a range of values likely to enclose the true value. This may be denoted by error bars on a graph, or by the following notations:

• measured value ± uncertainty
  

Hence when we scientifically measure a date we get a statistical date range in which the actual date lies. It doesn't mean the date doesn't exists or that science can't provide the answer. Just that these are the limitations of the measurement technique and any interpretations made from the result should take these into account.

Next you'll be saying there is no air until you breath it. Yawn