A handbook for new diggers?

[Martin Locock]

To return to my original question - is there a need for such a handbook? What about Martin Carver's Archaeological Excavation (2009) - anyone read it/ used it?

[Unitof1]

will it have a section on vat and copyright?

[chiz]

Sorry to return to the whole technological issue, but whilst laser-scanning and rectified photography are excellent tools and certainly have their place, everyone advocating scanning has missed one rather major point. Interpretation.

If you just scan a 'site' or a building or a road, then all you have is an image (a very useful one, mind). You still need to record the edges of contexts, the stone types and changes in mortar in a wall, and understand the sequence and nature of the site. The machines don't do that for you, and that is the information that currently is often being lost. We have wonderful images, but they have little archaeological meaning until time is spent interpreting them.

I can laser scan a church elevation, for example, but I will need to then add the stone types, the mortar, unpick the complexities that are hidden from immediate view, all of which are done as part of the hand drawing process and are integrated into a traditional approach. Traditional methods are iterative and one aspect feeds into the others, with technology I have too often seen information lost as archaeologists assume the technology has captured it -when it hasn't.

Hand drawing is a part of, and an aid to, understanding and interpretation. As we plan a layer, a cut or a wall we interpret, filter and record the context as a whole as well as the surface of it. Technology can do this, but it doesn't have an archaeologist's brain as part of the machine. The time saving is often an illusion and there are inherent dangers -not just of de-skilling- but of poor understanding. A shiny product, with little depth.

[Dinosaur]

To return to my original question - is there a need for such a handbook? What about Martin Carver's Archaeological Excavation (2009) - anyone read it/ used it?

Is it going to include really basic stuff like how to trowel and shovel? - stuff that doesn't seem to be covered by other books? A lot of supervisors these days (and probably twas always the case) can't trowel for **** (as demonstrated on a weekly basis on tv, what a mess!) so their workforce are never likely to learn anything from them. Really simple stuff like:-

a) Learning to trowel with both hands - greatly extends the period before you need physio...

b) If you're leaving grooves when trowelling you're gripping the trowel too tightly, on a flattish surface the trowel finds its own level, plus with a looser grip you accidentally pull less stones out and leave less embarrassing holes in your otherwise pristine 'clean' surface

c) When cleaning back a strip, trowel systematically in from each side (handy if you've learnt to trowel with both hands), all those annoying crumbs automatically move ahead of your trowelling direction from each side and collect in a neat heap in the centre - and in trowelling lines you don't get those stupid lines of left-behind-spoil between people's strips

d) When cleaning along a narrow trench always work from the sides inwards, and cut the baulk/base angle sharp (looks loads better in pics, and also makes the trench look deeper and more impressive for some reason) [for no obvious reason it's deemed unethical to do a slight underscore which looks even better in photos, so I tend not to draw attention to it....]

e) Keep your spoil to a minimum, no point trowelling the stuff 98 times when you're only being paid to move it once, plus trowelling into a big heap of loose means you're likely to miss a lot of the smaller finds [and kneeling in a heap of damp soil eventually rots your knees....]

f) When cleaning an area with projecting stones down to a level, use the point of the trowel to clean into and define the edges of the stones sharply at the same level - makes the stones stand out on photos - and give the top of each stone a quick brush as you go, pain in the **** having to go back to them....

h) When trowelling sticky clay etc keep you trowel blade clean by scraping it regularly on a hand-shovel, your thumb or the top of a bucket - the clag on your trowel sticks to and pulls up the surface you've just trowelled to and just leaves a mess

All really rather basic but surprising how many diggers don't seem to have been taught/mastered any of the above! :0

Don't even get me started on how ****most shovelling on site is - you'd think they'd want to learn how to do it properly if only to avoid all those horrendous back injuries and having to clean up around where the barrow was - why not learn to put it in the barrow first time around? :face-crying:

[CARTOON REALITY]

Sorry to return to the whole technological issue,

Well I'm not - that plan from Canterbury looks like it was hand coloured by Walt Disney on amphetamines.

[Unitof1]

can't trowel for **** .

problem with trowels is that it leads to artritus of the wrist and dry tendons. I have sometimes had my tendon make a creaking noise. Now I mainly use one of those wolfgarden tools, which they dont seem to make any more, because it mainly involves a pulling action which is a bit like hoeing. I dont care to trowel for ****. As for the rest of your list I find it sorely lacking in understanding of the logerithmic response of eyes to contrast. To put it most simplisticly dig with your back to the sun. I can only wonder at what you have missed....(VAT)

and thank you for agreeing with me chiz

[CARTOON REALITY]

That's precisely my point Unit -Walt Disney on amphetamines.

[Unitof1]

i am precisely with you although I do like the use of colour

[CARTOON REALITY]

Are you colour blind?

[Unitof1]

no but hodder is

and have been taking a closer look at dinos trowl commandments. Am wondering what a vooiltytuiier is at the moment