Paul Everill's 'Invisible Diggers' project ends this month. Paul’s PhD examines the profession through the eyes of ordinary archaeologists. We published his interim results in Digger 35, but here are some of your quotes he has published on his website, reprinted with permission.

'In the summer it’s the best job in the world, in winter you feel like you’ve been sent to a Russian Gulag, but out of the many and varied jobs I’ve done in my time, nothing comes close to the camaraderie and the large amount of cool broad-minded people you meet digging and it is a low stress job unlike many other professions. Instead the stress is when you have got home filthy, haven’t got to the bank, have f*ck all money and have just got a postcard from your mates with ‘proper jobs’ who are living it up somewhere hot on full pay.'

'The diggers are always the last to know about anything, including where they will be from day to day. Organisation is not a strong point in any unit that I have ever worked for and there seems to be an overwhelming lack of communication throughout the profession.'

A horde of 'experts' accompanied by
management suddenly drop onto your trench, totally ignore the excavators, and loudly make pronouncements regarding the work people are in the process of completing. Usually no input is requested from the excavation staff, obviously because we are some lower species of pond life.'

'Over the years I have found loads of sites and archaeological material during monitoring. I have written reports on said sites and material. My name appears nowhere!! How frustrating.'

'We need to squeeze out the cheapskates who pay low wages: ultimately their activities harm individuals and are responsible for the appalling loss of talent which haemorrhages out of the archaeological world every year.'

'There are many different opinions as to the problems inherent in the current commercial archaeology system and many different solutions. The main problem I see is apathy; archaeologists are not the most ‘go-getting’ bunch of people. They complain, a lot, but no one seems to do anything. A complete lack of organised rebellion has led to the continuing poor pay and conditions.'

'We need to be professionally organised- more people in the union, better training and wages. There are people I know who still get laid off over Christmas and go from week to week on weekly contracts - we are a disorganised bunch from top to bottom and no wonder developers and architects run rings round us and don’t take us seriously. The price of an archaeological condition on a developer's budget is measly and we are still scraping around doing things in ever-tighter budgets to that 'fixed price.''

'What do I hate most about commercial archaeology: the fact that prices in competitive tendering are pared down to such a degree that it is impossible to do a decent job on the archaeology without putting in unpaid time (something I do frequently) and that there is no-one who ensures good standards are maintained. And the fact that so many managers appear to have no idea what an excavation involves and have no interest in the archaeology.'

'It’s fast becoming a parody of itself. I feel we are reaching a stage when the skills needed to close a project quickly and profitably are far more important than the ability to excavate and record a site properly.'

Go to http://www.invisiblediggers.net to read more and take part in the survey yourself.

Web links :

Invisible Diggers

Dave Webbs Photo Archive of Diggers - Top Bloke!