No contradiction from me.

The situation is worse in Western Australia then in the eastern states. Here
they forgot to include artifact management in the heritage act so its an
up-hill struggle to get clients to pay for even basic artifact cataloguing
let along analysis. And there is no where for the artifacts to go once I am
finished with them. I am currently curating most of WA's excavated
historical period heritage in my spare room.

In WA there are no historical archaeologists on a salary, period, regardless
of their specialization. Which is why I am working in a non archaeological
heritage job and trying to run the consultancy around full time work.

Gaye
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alasdair Brooks" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, 20 September 2004 6:25 PM
Subject: Re: What is an arch; the finds problem


> Having now worked as a finds specialist/lab
> archaeologist/material culture researcher (whatever you want
> to call it) in the USA, UK, and Australia, my feeling is
> that the situation is best in the USA, next best in the UK,
> and worst in Australia.
>
> In the USA, there's an embedded culture of hiring lab
> archaeologists in both the contract and museum spheres.  In
> my experience, even historic house museums with only three
> archaeologists on staff will usually include a dedicated
> lab/artefact post, and many of the major CRM firms have lab
> staff.  So on balance, it's far more possible to make a
> career in artefact work in historical/post-medieval
> archaeology in the USA than the UK or Australia.
>
> Paul's already addressed the British situation.  I would
> only to his comments that add the expectation in Britain is
> often that the finds specialist will be multi-period rather
> than period specific - which can present challenges to those
> of us who are much better in one period than another.
> However, it's not entirely doom and gloom - though I concede
> that one position does not an artefact paradise make, at
> least two of the people on the shortlist for the recent
> Sheffield historical archaeology lectureship were finds
> specialists, including the person Sheffield hired.
>
> Here in Australia, I have managed to pay taxes as a
> free-lance material person over the last year - though this
> has been partially a matter of good luck (and the Australian
> tax threshold).  I'd argue that the artefact culture is far
> less developed here on balance than either the USA or the
> UK.  I'm happy to be corrected by Greg, Iain, Leah and Gaye
> (and any other Australian listmembers who might be reading),
> but I don't know of a single Australian CRM firm or museum
> that has a permanent historical archaeology artefact
> specialist staff member.  Nor do I know of a university
> archaeology department that has a historical archaeology
> artefact specialist on staff.  As far as I'm aware (and once
> again, I'm happy to be corrected), Victoria is currently the
> only state or territory to have state-wide artefact
> management guidelines, and the only state or territory to
> have its own archaeology lab (though an archaeology lab with
> only one - part-time - archaeologist actually on staff).
> And while we could all cite notable exceptions, this lack of
> guidelines carries through to site reports; if no one's
> going to actually _require_ artefact analysis to take place,
> then some people are inevitably going to save money by
> leaving it out.  Even where it does take place there are
> often problems; for example, I'm sure many of us based down
> here know examples of important recent Australian
> excavations where the ceramics analysis was carried out
> through sherd counts rather than vessel counts.
>
> Now, the situation has undoubtedly been improving here over
> the last decade, so I don't want to give the impression that
> things are irredeemably bad, or that I'm trying to tar
> everyone with the same brush (because I'm not), but where
> the USA has managed to maintain its tradition of
> professional artefact specialists, and the UK has a
> once-proud tradition that currently faces some issues,
> Australia has never really had an artefact tradition in the
> first place(or perhaps it would be fairer to say that it's
> still building one from the ground up?)
>
> So this is one area where I think we can all envy our
> US-based professional cousins.
>
> Alasdair
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
> [log in to unmask] Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 22:33:53 +0100
> From: paul courtney <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: What is an arch; the finds problem
>
> I don't know how bad the situation in States but in Britain
> there is a major
> problem re artefact expertise. The museum profession is
> gradually turning
> all curators into managers and increasingly labels subject
> specialsts as
> dangerous dinosaurs to be made redundant at the next
> re-organisation. Finds
> are generally not sexy in academia and finds work is often
> low paid in CRM
> work and seen as low status work; plus you are often given
> impossible time
> limits to do anything meaningful. Most artefact specialists
> in British
> archaeology are now free-lance (there may be some rich
> free-lances but I
> haven't paid tax for 10 years) and aging. My wife recently
> went to a meeting
> about the lack of object expertise in museums but the main
> response was to
> expect academics and others to provide the expertise to
> museums for nothing-
> fat chance. In Britain any academic who does anything which
> doesn't benefit
> the next research rating is going to get roasted by their
> boss and CRM
> people have to eat and put money into that over lean pension
> fund. And who
> is going to specialise in finds and make your career
> prospects even worse
> than in arcaheology generally.
>
> paul courtney
> Leicester
> UK
>
>
>
>       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dr.  Alasdair Brooks
> Material Culture Specialist / Lab Archaeologist
> SHA  Newsletter Current Research Editor for Australia/NZ
>  1/62 Gooch Street
> Thornbury, Vic  3071
> Australia
>  03 9416 8484
> 0429 198  532
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~