Whos digging what?

[kevin wooldridge]

Happy to say (if the bank manager is listening in) that I still have a little fieldwork going on somewhere in Scandinavia even at this late autumn date.

The 10cm of snow last week was a little distracting, but hasn't yet turned into permafrost and 10 minutes snow clearance is always a good warm-up activity first thing in the morning (and worth at least 2.5 centimetres off the waistline in the long run...)

But David is right, Dover Castle is probably the only place to be right now.......

[Weegie]

Dover is finished now, Kevin, but the team is about to move back to Chiswick to look at the Jacobean house for five weeks. Should be good, provided the weather holds, but we're perhaps a wee bit less likely to get snow than you are.

Mr Hostie - it would have to be a very improved MSC-style programme. I still wake up with nightmares about the last one, and am about to take yet more leave to finish report edits for a site I excavated in the eighties. At least that one will be published, unlike the large site I dug on Glasgow High Street....

Resistance is futile. Your project documentation will be MoRPHE-compliant.

[m300572]

"Preservation In-situ be damned. Archaeologists need work! "

Perhaps now is the time to spend some time and money on excavating a few of these sites which will fall into the sea in the next twenty years as the coast erodes. I can think of a few that would be good candidates and ther are probably a fair number that would make good "community archaeology" projects, with the added advantage that if you get any real pain in the arris types turning up to dig you can always tie them to a few sacks of soil samples and lob them onto the foreshore on a rising tide!.

[Weegie]

Fair point, m300572, but that would require a great deal more money than EH has, or any other government department or agency has been willing to spend on this problem. We have spent some time evaluating the archaeology of the cliff-edge of Whitby Headland, and have a good understanding of the high quality and significance of the archaeology that is falling into the sea, but there's no adequate funding for a programme of this scale or scope.

In response to Mercenary's point, I don't currently work for the bit of EH that allocates its grants for historic environment research, but this amounts to only £4.668m this year - which would not put much of a dent in the sort of programme you're talking about. If you need to know what the available money is being spent on, see http://hec.english-heritage.org.uk/admis...e/HOME.asp


Brian


Resistance is futile. Your project documentation will be MoRPHE-compliant.

[monty]

Hear hear Mr. Hostie ! A properly implemented and efficiently monitored new MSC style programme would give a much needed boost to British archaeology and rekindle enthusiasm lost in endless negative watching briefs .... LET'S DIG !!!!!!

[shovelnomore]

Your aspirations are so low.

But seriously, another MSC/new deal system would only unleash more low paid diggers onto the scene when there's too few jobs already.

[mercenary]

Weegie,

I'm all too aware of EH's limited ability to fund such a scheme. I just couldn't think of any other body to aim my facetious challenge at.:face-huh: Heritage seems to be an also-ran in the DCMS. But heigh-ho, aren't the Olympics going to be fun?

[Bier Keller]

Digging next to a known villa and was expecting - well - villa outbuildings. Plenty of Hallstatt and La Tene but no Roman. Augsburg, Bavaria.

Incidentally, I have a tip for some work until Yule, north of Munich (Ingolstadt). If anyone is interested in working where the diet consists of beer, meat, pretzels and more beer please PM.

Just give me a cold Becks

[monty]

contrary to shovelnomores negative opinion my aspirations for archaeology in Britain are HIGH ! im sure i speak for the majority who have had enough of dull PPG 16 projects often undertaken with the knowledge that nothing will be found. How will we ever add to our knowledge and broaden interpretations if everything is preserved in situ, surely that is not a low aspiration !! The comment about low paid diggers is very negative, and as we all know this issue is being addressed albeit slowly, there are digging jobs out there !!

[Oxbeast]

Nu-MSC is already here. I know of someone who was 'New Dealed' into archaeology in the late 90's, and she's still an archaeologist. Its not really a direction that I want to see the profession go in, profession being the operative word.