The future of commercial archaeology from a digger's point of view

[BAJR]

3 plus years as a Development Control archaeologist....Believe it! Its a tough job, which you have to learn on the job... You have to have knowledge on every area of archaeology, be tough enough to stand up for archaeology within a planning system, with no real powers, be able to be confident enough to stand up to contractors, or support them, to stand up to developers, or help them.. know your regulations and laws.. Often under funded, understaffed and in a cinderrella enviroment. Small cogs is indeed how you feel.

[dmama]

i'm sorry if you feel that i am personally dissing any of you. i'm sure that curators and the like are very overwhelmed but... the thread is from a diggers perspecive. after working throughout the country and for many units big and small as a digger for many years i can assure you that the world takes on a very differnt hue. as a specialist who comes at the end of the process of report writing and therfore toward the end of the recording process i get to see just how well information has been gathered and processed. it saddens me to see that fag packet archaeology still exists and it does exist believe me. what i am still trying to say is that in a world of financial deadlines and stiff competition for jobs some people on all levels find it quite easy to let others do the work that they should themselves be doing and taking the credit to boot. we need a body to make sure that we all pull our weight and that our jobs are taken seriously.that won't happen until we can accept that things need to change. seems pretty obvious to me. oh and if you feel like a small cog try being freelance...

[monty]

Is there a future............ when the big guns achieve total dominance (which they will !) they will not put diggers concerns before capitalism (whether 'educational charity' or not ).......... basically it aint gonna get any better whatever we try , the bottom line being making money ......profits and senior staff job security will always come before the archaeoology......................:face-stir:

[GnomeKing]

i second the sentiment that shoddy and technically poor records (never mind interpretations!) are too common - this is the case in large and small companies. Specialists are sometimes the only people to actually query the raw data...in the field it is also constant struggle to to maintain even basic levels of technical professionalism, let alone reach the standards that should be achievable with so many graduates around.....training is a problem...loss, and lack of recognition of skills are problems.......but mainly poor leadership and lack of technical knowledge at higher levels are the root causes.

If we want more pay and professional recognition, then we must seriously review the quality of our product....and then we must strive to constantly improve it.

some people in 'powerful' positions are simply not knowledgeable enough to review the technical quality of their companies output....would that they step aside, or delegate to those that do understand the scientific and technical basis of quality and continuously relevant archaeological research...they are dragging the profession down.

perhaps they just need the money

[Optimus Trowel]

I think part of the problem is a lack of training from the ground up. It's probably clich?, but a degree lays the bare-bones for learning to be an archaeologist but doesn't teach you much about the commercial sector. I'm sorry, but its true. If we had better training from the minute new diggers walked out on site you'd end up with much better trained and qualified supervisor several years down the line. Unfortunately there is a complete lack of anything approaching a long term view with regards to most of the units I've worked for. As somebody said above, most diggers are just seen as numbers in a column somewhere. And until that situation is addressed, you will continue to have newly promoted supervisors who may be a bit too intimidated to stand up for themselves, and the archaeology will suffer.

Now, I've had some supervisors who were absolutely brilliant and would take their time out to try and teach, but I've seen that happen less and less over the last few years as budgets get tighter and time-scales shorter. It's a crying shame, and an absolute waste of the talent pool that is in the field.

If this situation doesn't change, then we're going to continue to haemorrhage talented individuals who just don't want to put the time in for an industry that doesn't value them.

[dmama]

i agree with gnome king and to a certain respect with optimus. i'm one of the people who has spent 25 years learning my skill and find that at each turn new technology and/or less experience is preferable to a keen eye and accumulated experience. commercially it's cheaper not to have a planner or planning supervisor, for example. it may be cheaper but the mistakes and lack of experience can only really be sorted in the field. oh and what happens when the data logger goes down. as in surveying it seems that now you just need to know how to press the right buttons rather then know how to survey. sites are lost this way and no-one learns anything. surely there has to be a better way. why can't the archaeology and the archaeologist benefit rather than just the developer. at the risk of repeating myself a little we need to sort ourselves out and get the right perspective on how, what and why we do what we do....it's an old story and doesn't seem to get better with the retelling. god it's depressing. pub anyone?

[Dinosaur]

People (the diggers of today, yes this is an old git having his ha'penny-worth....) always seem to go up in flames when I query the claim that digging standards today are much superior to, say, in the bad old days of the 1970s - actually on average they're s**t compared to back then when people lived in tents on/near site and on a nice summer evening would e.g. fill in the time before heading down the pub hanging with the site planner while they were finishing something and actually learning how to plan (that's largely how I learnt), these days it's a miracle if the workforce aren't already in their cars and a receding cloud of dust at 5pm.......with that kind of group mentality why should I even waste my time passing skills on? Gone are the days when people actually stayed till they'd finished what they were doing 'cos it was forecast to rain overnight and would be trashed when they returned the following day, there's the distinct impression of a lack of pride in the work these days (with the occasional pleasure of a surprise exception).... :face-stir:

[kevin wooldridge]

I try to avoid 'old lag moaning' whenever possible (instead just return to my room and bang my head against the wall!!) but today I and another old lag did have a good old moan on site about why the youngsters of today can't seem to understand the importance of achieving and maintaining vertical balks......

[Geli]

Over the two decades I've had an involvement with archaeology it's fair to say that I've come across both good and bad practices. I've been inspired and impressed with the dedication and abilities of colleagues both new to the profession and those who have done the rounds. In equal measure i have also been disgusted and dejected by the lack luster approach of others. There are no easy answers to solving such issues within a framework of commercial tendering and within a practice that has no legal standing of real merit. The big and small contractors will always roll us because of this! what is needed is genuine legislative measures with real teeth. A new method of funding work and a removal of archaeology from being a condition of planning permission (where in effect the tail wags the dog) is needed. A broader, long term view of archaeology where investigation leads to information that informs on planning would be a step in the right direction! Until something like this is put in place the points made in this thread will always surface and resurface, provoking the same levels of disillusion and disenchantment for those of us who are interested and professional enough to care!

[Sith]

I try to avoid 'old lag moaning' whenever possible (instead just return to my room and bang my head against the wall!!) but today I and another old lag did have a good old moan on site about why the youngsters of today can't seem to understand the importance of achieving and maintaining vertical balks......

Thank Ford it's not just me who feels like that about sections. I might be a consultant these days but I regularly find myself wanting to grab a spade and show some of the youth of today how it should be done.