Q: how many archaeologists does it take to ruin an industry?

[P Prentice]

isn't it worth trying?

[Dinosaur]

Who is the field archaeologist here? Without one there is no such thing as field archaeology. [/SIZE]

Hopefully me! - I try, anyway. I might have a fancy job title but what I actually do is dig holes, make sense of them (hopefully) and make a stab at putting the information out there for others to use (although admittedly rarely successfully...ho, hum...). Someone ought to point the second bit out to IFA, they seem to have totally missed the point several decades ago

[Sith]

From my experience the courses also dont prepare the student for the commercial world at all. How many students after completing their course, certificate in hand, are aware of the regional resource assessments? MAP2? Research agendas, or even what a WSI is or how to do a DBA?

It's not just recent graduates who are unfamiliar with that stuff. And 'Map2?' surely you mean MoRPHE. }

[Unitof1]

Hopefully me! - I try, anyway

what control have you over your copyright?

[vulpes]

'Map2?' surely you mean MoRPHE

MoRPHE is just MAP2 with added navel gazing.

[moreno]

I don’t think anyone would argue that Universities are set up to train commercial archaeologists. As Jack has pointed out their priorities are generally focused on teaching undergrads and post grads in archaeology to think critically, write coherently, and research (as a requirement to the archaeology degree, undergrads attend a few weeks of field work). The majority of these taught skills can be applied towards a career as a lecturer or can be applied to the role of a project officer, project manager or consultant. Ok, so perhaps many diggers have degrees but don’t need them because generally degrees are not seen as preparation for commercial field work. Reading between the lines (the various threads and posts) the onus falls upon who is responsible for developing the necessary skills of a work force?

Who should bear this responsibility? The IFA, CBA, universities or commercial units etc? Acquiring the basic skill set to work as an entry level archaeologist should be part of a managed career development programme (awareness of regional resource assessments, understanding MORPHE, introducing WSI’s and DBA’s). How this is developed and managed should be discussed and/or debated. The focus should really be towards solving these issues rather than belabouring them. Call it whatever you want, label it however you might, but agreement is needed on putting into place a structure to manage a commercial career in archaeology.

[Dinosaur]

It's been quite clear from some 'DBAs' that I've seen recently that some organisations producing them don't include any staff who know what one should consist of (ie perhaps just a little bit more than straight regurgitation of the local HER entries, maybe a teeny bit of interpretation, and an understanding that large earthwork complexes occasionally take up more landscape than the HER spot would suggest...), which might make in-house training tricky?? :face-stir:

[moreno]

... who is responsible for developing the necessary skills of a work force?

Who should bear this responsibility?... Acquiring the basic skill set to work as an entry level archaeologist should be part of a managed career development programme. How this is developed and managed should be discussed and/or debated. The focus should really be towards solving these issues rather than belabouring them.

Personally I don't find mico-managing effective. So I wouldn't want to see a scheme catering for every aspect of "training", some responsibility for training must be borne by the commercial sector.

[Sith]

..some responsibility for training must be borne by the commercial sector.

I would assume that most of the cost should be borne by the 'employer' as it is in pretty much every other 'industry' or profession. Even then they still expect the recipient and beneficiary of the training to stump up for some of it.

[Jack]

Yeah I spotted some aggregate companies advertising for 'graduate archaeologists' or some such to do DBA's etc. Also seen such a company let two students 'excavate' and record an entire IA/RB settlement coz they said they could do it cheaper than our company. Think the post ex of that 'project' was passed around several proffesional units after the students had 'excavated' the site as they made such a mess. Don't think that site will ever make sense now.

Construction companies are very good at finding undergrads or post-grads (or cheap pretnd consultants) who can apparently do the work of a proffesional commercial company coz they got a degree (or getting one). The resulting consultancy, DBA and WSI as Dino points out are often a joke.....and effectively cripple any effort to find any archaeology afterwards.

Its all heading back to the bad old days of entire pipelines being reduced to an intermittant watching brief with the poor archaeologist on site chasing round blind trying to find the machines stripping topsoil as the engineers 'dont seem to know where they are' and totally unaware of where important remains may be.

Because of course a list of stuff on the HER and NMR is often not a good reflection of what may be there.....but those with permitted development rights are using these 'DBA's' as an excuse not to do any trial-trenching, or decent geophysics, or a proper assessment of what might be where, or allowing enough time to deal with any archaeology as'none is expected'!