Sometimes the CRM field reminds me of the what is becoming ubiquitous, the
infra-red transit. It basically works as a daytime night vision scope, the
mirror reflects back to the telescope's receiver in a very narrow range in a
very narrow amount of time measured speeds of light in a single frequency.

The analogy is that the operator, the one reponsible for the drawings and
documentation, is furthest from the actual objects of study, when the
precision of measurement is applied. So this leads to a split in the
observations that requires some sort of "belief" in that which was measured.
Of course this is continually updated in the field, but adds an enigma to
the paradox of "the more one takes out the larger it gets" that sites
become.

I have found no training would prepare me for the fieldwork, but having a
circle of friends in different fields, arts, land survey, math, etc., was
actually more persistently advantageous than paid for instruction, which
never covers the driving around of crews to meals, the mis-direction by
higher-ups, the strange shipment of artifacts to others states for Federal
and other "approved" cataloging, and other strangely occurring human
dynamics (housing arranged but not seen, housing at all, vehicles, etc.) in
the field of "public" archaeology.

George Myers