How should British Archaeology be run

[Dinosaur]

oh dear, looks like lego-brick archaeology's spreading....

[BAJR]

Lets hope not.

For my money there are several essential skills that are required, from filling out context sheets, to section drawing and taking decent images with both digital and traditional cameras... taking a level and reading/writing a basic report. etc,

Hack it out and get it in section ( you know who you are ! ) is actally just as valid, if you know what you are doing and why.... but before you get to that confidence, one has a lot of water to pass under your bridge.

What would you suggest are the basics for a 1 month - 6 month digger ??

Am currently putting together the proposal for the training/old lags/research/students and new commercials will be in October... you free Kevin... I feel GIS is also becoming an essential

[kevin wooldridge]

What would you suggest are the basics for a 1 month - 6 month digger ?? Am currently putting together the proposal for the training/old lags/research/students and new commercials will be in October... you free Kevin... I feel GIS is also becoming an essential

I will write you a mail at the weekend David....

[david.petts]

Just in case there was any misunderstanding I'm certainly not suggesting that the current status quo is a good thing - whillst in the early / pre-PPG16 days when there was less commercial pressure, it was a lot easier to get trained up in an ad hoc manner, it is very different today in the current economic climate. I also wonder whether the fact that so many skilled archaeologists were made redundant in recent years means that at the moment employers are able to pick and choose amongst a fairly skilled up work force meaning there is not so much pressure to train- I'm happy to stand corrected on this.

I also think that even within their existing limits universities could do a lot more to prepare people for potential archaeological employment, whether it be in fieldwork/ finds research (where the training problem is far far more acute than in fieldwork) or any other aspect of the profession. I think we need to be much more explicit, much earlier about what an archaeological career requires- archaeological careers advice tends to be given in the 3rd year when often it is too late for students to change their options and choices. At Durham, we're trying to do annual careers talks open to the entire UG cohort - crucially these have been given by some of our post-grads who have spent significant times in commercial archaeology. We also need to be realistic- I've long been telling my students that if they want a job outside academia they should think very long and hard before doing a PhD - as four years in the saddle is far more valuable than the very deep but narrow training provided by a PhD. Equally, if they want to do an MA they should think about seomthing that will provide them with a very specific skill - such as geophysics, GIS etc etc.

One problem that is likely to get worse is that academia and fieldwork are getting increasingly separated. In the old days, it was far more common for experienced fieldworkers to step side ways into University posts. However, now with the requirement for all Lecturers to have PhDs and extensive publication/ grant records, we are seeing more and more people in university posts who have never worked outside academia and have very limited experience or understanding of commercial archaeology - this is not a good thing. Even if we can't equip students with the full skill set for a commercial career we should at least be able to tell them what they should do to acquire the additonal knowledge and I don't think we are very good at doing that.

I think collaboration is going to be crucial and skills-based post-grad/diplomas etc will equally be key. However, given the need for long-term on-going partnerships, I worry that the current financial problems means that it is going to be very difficult to set up partenrships with individual commercial concerns with a guaranteee that it will be in place over a reasonable time (e.g. 3- 5 years). It may be that EH / IFA/ CBA might be good bodies to co-ordinate such partnerships allowing some degree of continuity (although I know that many here view them all with varying degrees of suspicion).

Anyhow, I'm going to have to duck out of this discussion for a while as I'm heading off on fieldwork (yes, this will involve me donning beret and black polo neck whilst my Armani clad field-gimps carry me around in my ivory sedan chair as I scream 'hermeneutics' at my genetically modified excavation peons)

For what it's worth, this has been my first extended foray into a BAJR forum and it's been interesting in all senses of the world. There has been some really interesting debate- but I must admit I was pretty bewildered by UO1s pretty unremitting hostility - I confess to finding out his identity (didn't take long using my twattish humanity research skills) as I assumed he was someone I'd come across and annoyed at some point in my career, although now I know who he is, I'm pretty sure I've never met him. I'm all for a vigorous debate, but I must admit I did have genuine problems following his argument (there is a notable correlation between his coherence and the time of day his postings were put...late night postings having a certain Virginia Woolfesque stream of consciousness aspect to them). Anyway having poked around elsewhere on BAJR forums and spoken to other members off-line I don't feel so picked on and his identity is pretty well known, so I won't take it personally- I now imagine him less as an angry young man and more like Comic Book Guy. Anyway, upshot is, I will be back!

cheers
David

[Unitof1]

All I ever said was get rid of the curators, this was in answer to: How should british archaeology be run.

I think collaboration is going to be crucial and skills-based post-grad/diplomas etc will equally be key.

I think that you should be more worried about holding onto the BA undergraduate course. You will start seeing this coming when you hear things like "not fit for purpose".

[Jack]

Uof1 bewliders us all most of the time :face-stir:
Davids post I think hits several nails squarely on their heads.

How can an academic archaeologist understand say the intricacies of the debate on Neolithic mobility patterns when they don't fully understand the archaeological contexts within your average posthole?
During my masters degree I was shocked that I had to explain what a postpipe was (to some) and that the particular context that the charred grain in question came from was crucial to whether it likely derived from before the construction, during use, or after destruction/disuse of the structure.

[Unitof1]

and was it a science orientated degree or an arts one?

[P Prentice]

..How can an academic archaeologist understand say the intricacies of the debate on Neolithic mobility patterns when they don't fully understand the archaeological contexts within your average posthole?

good point indeed especially when a lot of stuff is written about a lot of sites that were dug by people who cant really dig

[kevin wooldridge]

How can an academic archaeologist understand say the intricacies of the debate on Neolithic mobility patterns when they don't fully understand the archaeological contexts within your average posthole?

It doesn't just apply to academic archaeologists....I sometimes feel I am in a permanent war with a cabal of stone age archaeologists who would like to use computer technology (primarily GIS) to analyse the 'data' recovered from their excavations, but due to their disdain for stratigraphic excavation methodology the data and the 'analysed' results are largely spurious. Quoting the GIGO protocol ('Garbage in, garbage out') is a sure fire way of not getting an invite to the Christmas party!!

I should add I also know a lot of academic archaeologists who can both dig and think the spots off many commercial archaeologists, thus proving that brute ignorance doesn't always wear a cap and gown!!

[Dinosaur]

Can they do the hand signals for the 45 ton yellow trowel then?