An industry in Ruins? RTE News

Riamfada

Excusing the horrifically unfunny overuse of sad puns in this video, RTE news did a piece on the state of the profession. I would be interested to see what you guys think of it.

Link here

dr gonzo

Cheers for the link Riamfada, been meaning to track this down since it aired but i cant get it working for some reason, is there anywhere else to watch it?

Edit: Scratch that, got it.

snowdaisy

yea i saw it aired, got a shock tbh,
have been hearing how f'ed architects and solicitors are all the last few years and not a peep out of the powers that be in archaeology, about time!

Now lets get a realistic solutuion to finding something for the few that haven't been able to afford to retrain / change career and are hanging on in there to get work - paid work that is.
The story on the archaeological street is that the 'field school' type set up shown on the piece are looking for experienced diggers to volunteer their services for free to show people how to dig. Not only would you lose your dole by doing that, you would incur costs to get there etc. Its also a business charging from 160 yo yos a day to joe public to 'be an archaeologist for a day' if i'm not mistaken.:mad:

Still treated like sh** when we're unemployed ha ha ha aha aha aha!!!

slowburner

snowdaisy wrote: »

yea i saw it aired, got a shock tbh,
have been hearing how f'ed architects and solicitors are all the last few years and not a peep out of the powers that be in archaeology, about time!

Now lets get a realistic solutuion to finding something for the few that haven't been able to afford to retrain / change career and are hanging on in there to get work - paid work that is.
The story on the archaeological street is that the 'field school' type set up shown on the piece are looking for experienced diggers to volunteer their services for free to show people how to dig. Not only would you lose your dole by doing that, you would incur costs to get there etc. Its also a business charging from 160 yo yos a day to joe public to 'be an archaeologist for a day' if i'm not mistaken.:mad:

Still treated like sh** when we're unemployed ha ha ha aha aha aha!!!

What on earth is the thinking behind showing untrained people how to excavate? Who does that benefit?

Meathlass

snowdaisy wrote: »

yea i saw it aired, got a shock tbh,
have been hearing how f'ed architects and solicitors are all the last few years and not a peep out of the powers that be in archaeology, about time!

Now lets get a realistic solutuion to finding something for the few that haven't been able to afford to retrain / change career and are hanging on in there to get work - paid work that is.
The story on the archaeological street is that the 'field school' type set up shown on the piece are looking for experienced diggers to volunteer their services for free to show people how to dig. Not only would you lose your dole by doing that, you would incur costs to get there etc. Its also a business charging from 160 yo yos a day to joe public to 'be an archaeologist for a day' if i'm not mistaken.:mad:

Still treated like sh** when we're unemployed ha ha ha aha aha aha!!!

Yeah got an email about that yesterday. A general call out for any experienced diggers who'd be interested in working for nothing. According to their website they are accredited by DCU and offer modules to archaeology students. They charge 550 a week and have 20 places a week. So that's 11,000 a week they take in and they expect people to work for free! Hope no one takes them up on their 'offer'. Bit of a joke really!

Marchandire

Have you got a link for that website?

dr gonzo

Im very much still at a stage where i'd be uncomfortable considering myself capable in any way on site but i completely agree with the general consensus, theres a hell of a lot of arm chancing going on at the moment.

Meathlass

Marchandire wrote: »

Have you got a link for that website?

www.iafs.ie

Riamfada

The Irish Archaeology Field School / IAFS are registered trading names of CRDS Ltd Archaeological and Historical Consultants
Unit 4A Dundrum Business Park, Dundrum, Dublin 14, Ireland

Id understand if it was a research dig but people taking work for free with a consultancy will set a dangerous precedent. No doubt there will be plenty who will take the positions which will only encourage "free labour" among other professional bodies.

slowburner

Riamfada wrote: »

The Irish Archaeology Field School / IAFS are registered trading names of CRDS Ltd Archaeological and Historical Consultants
Unit 4A Dundrum Business Park, Dundrum, Dublin 14, Ireland

Id understand if it was a research dig but people taking work for free with a consultancy will set a dangerous precedent. No doubt there will be plenty who will take the positions which will only encourage "free labour" among other professional bodies.

This kind of conundrum is as old as God.
On the one hand, working for free belittles the profession and weakens the case for a decent salary.
On the other, it would suit the CV to have been active in something related to the profession - if and when things improve.
A union issue perhaps.

katarin

The situation in Britain is that commercial archaeologists are out of work and universities are losing staff/ funding/ departments in archaeology. Plenty of people (academics, for instance; the university boards; government legislators) are asking what the point is in having a distinctive 'archaeological' profession, as opposed to being a material culture historian, a heritage manager or simply a labourer with basic fieldwork skills.

The solution in some cases has been to focus on public engagement and raise awareness of archaeology amongst the taxpaying public. I don't think that working for free to demonstrate archaeological practice devalues the profession at all; there's a huge amount of public interest in the work that archaeologists do. Watching Channel Four during the day and BBC at night will tell you that. It may be harder to get fieldschools going in Ireland (because of licencing etc) and fieldwork options may be liminted but it can still work.

A massive public interest in the subject is probably the only reason some academic departments have survived the cuts in the last two years. Training the public in basic techniques like contextual analysis can also decrease the risk of some genius dragging up something important with a shovel and destroying the context of the artefact.

As for weakening the case for a decent salary - how? Hobby archaeologists and weekend diggers can't work professionally. Professional archaeologists in the commercial sector aren't at risk.

slowburner

katarin wrote: »

The situation in Britain is that commercial archaeologists are out of work and universities are losing staff/ funding/ departments in archaeology. Plenty of people (academics, for instance; the university boards; government legislators) are asking what the point is in having a distinctive 'archaeological' profession, as opposed to being a material culture historian, a heritage manager or simply a labourer with basic fieldwork skills.

The solution in some cases has been to focus on public engagement and raise awareness of archaeology amongst the taxpaying public. I don't think that working for free to demonstrate archaeological practice devalues the profession at all; there's a huge amount of public interest in the work that archaeologists do. Watching Channel Four during the day and BBC at night will tell you that. It may be harder to get fieldschools going in Ireland (because of licencing etc) and fieldwork options may be liminted but it can still work.

A massive public interest in the subject is probably the only reason some academic departments have survived the cuts in the last two years. Training the public in basic techniques like contextual analysis can also decrease the risk of some genius dragging up something important with a shovel and destroying the context of the artefact.

As for weakening the case for a decent salary - how? Hobby archaeologists and weekend diggers can't work professionally. Professional archaeologists in the commercial sector aren't at risk.

Professional archaeologists are being asked to work for nothing. Could there possibly be a better way to weaken a case for a decent salary?
I'm not so sure that legitimate hobby archaeologists and weekend diggers officially exist in Ireland. The laws on metal detecting are very different between the two jurisdictions, for example.
I look forward to being corrected/informed on the status of this particular matter.

katarin

I think there's confusion in what I mean by 'hobby archaeologists and weekend diggers'. What I mean are people, usually retired people/ school kids/ sometimes just interested people who join archaeology groups and dig sites on the weekends, or for a week or two during the summer. They're not usually formally trained and are generally working under the tutorship of a local archaeologist who is directly involved with their club/ group/ society. We do archaeological societies in Ireland, but the problem is getting a licence for a community project like this. On the other hand, fieldwalking and survey can still be carried out. In this case, an archaeologist isn't paid but gets involved at their own expence for the experience or just for the sake of it. It's usually seperate from their official job.

TBH, I went back to university because I couldn't get a job in archaeology. If I was offered the chance to dig, even if it was just for the sake of doing it and not for pay, then I would take it up just to keep my skills up. I dont see how it would affect salaries (like I said, in Britain, commercial archaeolgists still work commercial digs - members of the public can't do commercial, there are still jobs for archaeologists).