IfA to be abolished and replaced by......

[Sikelgaita]

I also have to criticise all those old school diggers out there who want to be paid and recognised for just technical skills. I have always considered archaeology an academic vocation.

Noooo.....(wails and gnashes teeth in despair).

The most important people on site are those that actually excavate and record the archaeology. Without the technical skills of those (old school) diggers there is no record with which a 'CIfA approved academic archaeologist' can work.

My biggest problem with the IfA is that its expectation of what an archaeologists career should look like is far too academically oriented. This IMO alienates a large number of potential members. Why cannot an archaeologist be recognised as a MIfA purely on his fieldwork skills. Not everyone can or wants to write reports but this does not in any way make them less worthy archaeologists.

[Tool]

Noooo.....(wails and gnashes teeth in despair).

The most important people on site are those that actually excavate and record the archaeology. Without the technical skills of those (old school) diggers there is no record for which a 'CIfA approved academic archaeologist' can work.

My biggest problem with the IfA is that its expectation of what an archaeologists career should look like is far too academic oriented. This IMO alienates a large number of potential members. Why cannot an archaeologist be recognised as a MIfA purely on his fieldwork skills. Not everyone can or wants to write reports but this does not in any way make them less worthy archaeologists.

Totally agree with that, too. A degree only teaches you how to think about a particular subject, it does not bestow some arcane knowledge. That ability to think can be learned in other ways, and is inherent in many to start off with (although sometimes needs a little honing). I have nothing against anyone pursuing a degree, having a degree, or even electing for the academic life. But that isn't the be all and end all of archaeology. You either have an aptitude for it or you don't, and a degree is no guarantee that you do.

[Wax]

What I want to see is a clear definition of what constitutes a "Chartered Archaeologist" something that clearly takes into account the very broad range of specialisms that can be considered "archaeology". And perhaps at is very basic level states that to be an "archaeologist" you must have dug or undertaken other appropriate field work for a minimum number of years whether you have a degree or not. Yes I know there are some specialist fields out there where in theory you may never need to exit the nice warm lab or office but to me an archaeologist must at least have an understanding of where the evidence comes from and how it is collected. Too much of what now constitutes archaeology has lost all contact with the field.

The IFA gradings of membership have become divisive and do not recognise the skills of the field worker the step from practitioner to member is too great and I think unrealistic in a discipline where it is difficult to get jobs that enable you to get the necessary experience and training to move up the membership grades. The opportunities to progress are not there a charted organisation must surely provide such opportunities for its members otherwise what is it? A few bursaries and the occasional training course do not in my opinion constitute an organisation that is encouraging training and career progression.

May be there will be a total re think of the structure for a charted organisation but I suspect not. I want a licence to undertake field work which membership of a charted organisation is not.

[Dinosaur]

One issue with the 'IfA way' which promotes, for instance, single context recording, is that it is not the only way - for instance I've worked on sites where digging boxes beloved in the dim-and-distant by the likes of Wheeler et al would actually have been far more appropriate than the ill-fitting single-context approach. Many younger diggers these days recoil in horror at the concept of leaving baulks, which do, it may come as a shock to them discover, actually have their uses (if only for going back and checking once you've discovered all the impossibilities in the site matrix), anyway, what do they think all those un-dug bits of ditch are, if not rather wide baulks? And I'm getting fed up with people telling me that 'everyone' e.g. puts cut numbers in rectangles and fills in ovals, I don't for a start so that blows that one out of the water straight off, and in fact context numbers aren't the only way of recording archaeological deposits anyway, they're going to get a nasty shock when they come to work for someone who uses feature numbers with letter codes for the fills, for instance. IfA is slowly attempting to kill the diversity in archaeology ("you have to be a RO and do things our way").

Rant over - discuss :face-stir:

[archaeologyexile]

Noooo.....(wails and gnashes teeth in despair).

The most important people on site are those that actually excavate and record the archaeology. Without the technical skills of those (old school) diggers there is no record with which a 'CIfA approved academic archaeologist' can work.

My biggest problem with the IfA is that its expectation of what an archaeologists career should look like is far too academically oriented. This IMO alienates a large number of potential members. Why cannot an archaeologist be recognised as a MIfA purely on his fieldwork skills. Not everyone can or wants to write reports but this does not in any way make them less worthy archaeologists.

My point is that without aspiring to write up,what you dig you betray your own interpretation as it becomes second hand, it is not enough just to dig, you have to,know what your digging and how it fits into the wider picture ie you need to write up things!

[archaeologyexile]

Tool, i reject this idea that one can dispassionately record a feature in a manner that someone who has not been on site can write up, something is lost. The only way to ensure this doesn't happen is to write your own sites up!

[Dinosaur]

...you have to,know what your digging and how it fits into the wider picture...

A bit of background reading before you start would be good then, oh and of course some in-depth local knowledge...back to the concept of local units then.... :face-stir:

[Tool]

Tool, i reject this idea that one can dispassionately record a feature in a manner that someone who has not been on site can write up, something is lost. The only way to ensure this doesn't happen is to write your own sites up!

With the crowd I work for, the reports are usually written up by the project leader, who has been on site, digs stuff, gets down and dirty and sees the bigger picture thanks to having access to all the records, not just the one's I produce. For me to write up a site I'd either have to run the jobs (in which case there would be a host of others digging, recording but not writing the reports) or work for myself. Not likely to happen in the near future.

[archaeologyexile]

Tool, you are of course in charge of your own career, but you should be aspiring to write up, ask to help, set up your own private research projects, get research finding, do it in weekends and your holiday......it's very hard work but your own on site work will improve when you see the other side and your career will progress when you improve your cv!

[Tool]

Tool, you are of course in charge of your own career, but you should be aspiring to write up, ask to help, set up your own private research projects, get research finding, do it in weekends and your holiday......it's very hard work but your own on site work will improve when you see the other side and your career will progress when you improve your cv!

I'm not sure if I totally agree, but I think I understand what you're getting at. It's still early in my career though. I came straight into commercial archaeology from construction, so I had already seen my position as a grunt rather than anything more involved. Having said that, my employers are very good at encouraging us upwards (within the constraints of operating in the resource-limmited commercial world, obviously). But thank you for the advice and I will consider what you say. There are possibilities along the lines you suggest in the pipeline, and I do already have a couple of simple test-pit reports with my name on them from a community project I was involved in. Having said all that, the priority at the moment is to continue learning and getting experience in what I see as the basics. Mainly so I can get promoted from trainee - the money is shite at this level!