The discipline of archaeology is often overlooked when it comes to a student planning a career. Possibly this is because it does not pay rich financial dividends, and because until recently archaeology has been the recreational resource of a few squires and rural clergy who found time hanging heavy on their hands and students who found digging for the past a socially rewarding way of spending the long vacation. But I see from recent press reports that archaeology is taking shape as a legitimate academic exercise and a satisfying career.
During the past few decades it has become apparent that picking on a likely mound on the hillside and digging into it with no plan and no ethical guidance is no longer permissible. Cowboy treasure hunters are the only people likely to indulge in this sport, and they must be rigorously outlawed. Much modern excavation is prompted by building or other commercial developments which threaten to destroy cultural and historical records, and which have to be halted while certain investigations are carried out. Rescue archaeology calls for a group of experts with academic knowledge, backed by a gang of students or amateurs who can wield spades and trowels under supervision and according to strict rules.
One of the delights of field archaeology is the diversity of exercises it embraces. There is a place in every excavation team for artists, surveyors, photographers, geologists, anatomists, botanists and chemists. Specialised techniques have to be at hand for cleaning and preserving structures and objects revealed from the soil (or sometimes the sea or river), classifying and evaluating them to yield the maximum information about the past they represent. Analysts in the physical and chemical fields are essential. Ancient structures, materials in the form of bones, wood and metals, have to be interpreted as they emerge from oblivion. Glass and ceramics, even the residues of ancient latrines, can reveal all manner of detail regarding the habits of our ancestors.
There are, too, stirring or comic incidents encountered during an archaeological expedition. The unearthing of an unsuspected burial site can be strangely moving and reveal some bizarre habits. Even surveying, the most mundane activity an archaeologist can imagine, may have its bright side. I remember during the activities involved in taking a university course in field archaeology having to survey the ruins of a monastic establishment abutting on a famous ancient abbey. Measurements are made from a base line, and this is secured by inserting nails into suitable masses of masonry and joining them with a light rope kept horizontal by checks with a spirit level. While studiously measuring distances with metre rules we were alarmed by a nearby sound as of angry voices. It turned out that some of our class had ventured to drive nails into the cracks in the tower of the abbey, which is still used for services, to set up their base line. The noise of hammers had alarmed a couple of vergers who were officiating inside, and they had rushed out bent on vengeance. It took all the diplomacy our tutor could muster, and the shuffling of permits and other official documents, to pacify the outraged guardians. I do not know to this day whether the university authorities ever received a complaint from the archbishop.