Your story reminds me of Mortimer Wheeler's series of instructions on how
to do archaeology that appeared over several issues of Indian Archaeology:
A Review (which was his journal when he directed the Archaeological Survey
of India). I have numerous old copies, and I need to dig this one up, but
I will paraphrase from memory.

Describing the role of site director, Wheeler cautions aspiring
archaeologists to be ever-wary of lazy laborers who will go to sleep
behind the spoil tips after each and every barrow full, unless watched
like a hawk. He then tells his disciples that they should stand ever
ready, with their very sharp knives sheathed at their sides, to leap into
a pit, draw their knives swiftly, and to masterfully (and with minimal
strokes) cut an impeccably clean section along the baulk (which, last I
heard, is the term we yankees use also, Adrian). My impression is that, to
Wheeler, leadership meant keeping the "wogs" in awe and fear.

Dan Mouer
Virginia Commonwealth University
[log in to unmask]
http://saturn.vcu.edu/~dmouer/homepage.htm

On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Praetzellis wrote:

> HISTARCHers,
>
> For those who care,  ol' Rick Wheeler dug in 10x10 foot units known as
> Wheeler Boxes.
> My second excavation was on a Roman site at Usk in South Wales in 1969 or
> thereabouts where the Wheeler Box technique was employed by the dig's
> director, Bill Manning (remember him?). Excavation was done most carefully,
> but from time to time we would line up a row of wheelbarrows close to the
> remaining walls of soil --known in UK as baulks-- undercut the baulks with
> a pick, push them over into the barrows, and wheel the soil away to the
> tip.  The trick was to get as much soil in the barrows and the least amount
> on the ground. The process was known as baulk bashing, and you can quote me
> on that.
>
> Next, the site supervisor would shout those historic words:
> <quote> Clean it up and I'll have a look at it <unquote>.
> We poor diggers would then spend three hours scraping up the remaining soil
> to surgical standards of cleanliness, the supervisor would clump about in
> his hob-nail boots, we'd re-clean the area, and they'd get the final
> photograph sans baulk. Them was the days, me friends!
>
> Whoops. Gotta go. Time for  Xena, Warrior Princess!
>
> Adrian Praetzellis
> Nostalgia State University
>