30th April 2005, 06:24 PM
I too have been reading for awhile but as I am in Canada I didn't think of much to contribute. However, I see you are interested in conditions etc in OZ. I figure I am just about as far away, would you like to know the situation in Canada, well Western Canada?
Here goes...
Undergrads do a 4 year BA or BSc and must have 6 credits worth (about 6 weeks digging) of field school to graduate. This does vary by uni though. Field schools are fairly intensive. You learn to dig in 1x1m squares in 5-10cm arbitrary levels unless you encounter a paleosol or occupation layer and all finds are 3D recorded using a string line attached to a known datum. Eah student is given their own sqaure. Each sqaure has its own datum which is tied into the national grid. Excavation is entirley by hand, no JCB's like I hear you use in the UK. Students are also taught how to survey in a grid, draw finds, and keep accurate records. Basically field schools are the stepping stone to working for a CRM unit, the work is the same but on a smaller scale.
Employment opps are good over here. Most people with a BA get jobs after they graduate with a CRM (cultural resource management) firm. There is a lot of field walking and recording of possible sites. Food and lodging is always included on top of your pay, and pay is around $10-$12 an hour plus overtime. It's great because you have no expenses during the week except beer.
The work week is usually 10 hour days, 10 days on then 4 days off which works well because the sites tend to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere and getting home can be a long journey (4-5 hrs). Diggers are encouraged to write reports about the site for publication in journals.
Downfalls are the sweltering heat, the mosquitos, ticks, deadly snakes and spiders and aching arms from all that shovel shaving! Also, the archaeology is quite samey. It is all lithics and hearths and debitage. Lots and lots of debitage which all has to be recorded in 3D, by hand. Gets a bit tiring after awhile. Also field work dries up in the winter (due to the ground being frozen solid) and some people get lab work to do while others have to find something else. If you come across a skeleton the RCMP have to be called in and that can put a site on hold for a quite a while. They check to see if the body is that of a murder victim etc because bodies were very, very rarely buried before the Euorpeans came over.
There aren't any unions that I know of but contracts tend to be long, about 4-5 months. In some provinces you must have an MA in archaeology In order to hold a permit to dig (run and manage a site, not be a digger).
Everything varies a bit depending on which province you work in but the pay and the conditions are pretty much the same. The one constant is you [u]never</u> work for a company that doesn't provide food and lodging on top of pay.
Here goes...
Undergrads do a 4 year BA or BSc and must have 6 credits worth (about 6 weeks digging) of field school to graduate. This does vary by uni though. Field schools are fairly intensive. You learn to dig in 1x1m squares in 5-10cm arbitrary levels unless you encounter a paleosol or occupation layer and all finds are 3D recorded using a string line attached to a known datum. Eah student is given their own sqaure. Each sqaure has its own datum which is tied into the national grid. Excavation is entirley by hand, no JCB's like I hear you use in the UK. Students are also taught how to survey in a grid, draw finds, and keep accurate records. Basically field schools are the stepping stone to working for a CRM unit, the work is the same but on a smaller scale.
Employment opps are good over here. Most people with a BA get jobs after they graduate with a CRM (cultural resource management) firm. There is a lot of field walking and recording of possible sites. Food and lodging is always included on top of your pay, and pay is around $10-$12 an hour plus overtime. It's great because you have no expenses during the week except beer.
The work week is usually 10 hour days, 10 days on then 4 days off which works well because the sites tend to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere and getting home can be a long journey (4-5 hrs). Diggers are encouraged to write reports about the site for publication in journals. Downfalls are the sweltering heat, the mosquitos, ticks, deadly snakes and spiders and aching arms from all that shovel shaving! Also, the archaeology is quite samey. It is all lithics and hearths and debitage. Lots and lots of debitage which all has to be recorded in 3D, by hand. Gets a bit tiring after awhile. Also field work dries up in the winter (due to the ground being frozen solid) and some people get lab work to do while others have to find something else. If you come across a skeleton the RCMP have to be called in and that can put a site on hold for a quite a while. They check to see if the body is that of a murder victim etc because bodies were very, very rarely buried before the Euorpeans came over.
There aren't any unions that I know of but contracts tend to be long, about 4-5 months. In some provinces you must have an MA in archaeology In order to hold a permit to dig (run and manage a site, not be a digger).
Everything varies a bit depending on which province you work in but the pay and the conditions are pretty much the same. The one constant is you [u]never</u> work for a company that doesn't provide food and lodging on top of pay.
Kath- many thanks for your contribution, please keep it coming and let your colleagues know that we want their opinions-lots of them! All is not well in British commercial archaeology and we could do with new voices and perceptions in order to place our little world in context.Hear from you again soon guys...