Category Archives: Project Archaeologists

Formal training is perhaps seen as the preserve of the larger, more established archaeological unit able to put considerable resources into training schemes and have staff specifically dedicated to implementing them. However, working for a smaller company can provide better opportunities for consistent mentoring and for a diverse training experience.

On Wednesday 20th April, AAL contributed to a session organised by the Diggers Forum at the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) annual conference, entitled ‘The skills gap: training for competence in archaeology’.

AAL has undergone pretty rapid growth. In January 2014 there were 14 staff and by the end of last year we had 45 staff, including three trainees. Training plans are put in place for staff to progress and to change direction, for example into geophysics or archives, but this post focuses on our ‘entrance level’ training plan.

So why is training important? Well, with increasing workload and larger jobs we needed more people; not only did we need to increase capacity but also flexibility. Training gives us the chance to grow skills in-house which are tailored to company methods and needs. Like many archaeological companies out there we had recruitment problems – especially for fixed term roles. The problem wasn’t numbers of applicants but that very few had the experience we were after. Partly it was about need, and partly about gaining the confidence to do it. We’re involved in community archaeology projects, site open days, National Trust training days and short-term university teaching, so surely we ought to have the skills in-house to train other archaeologists? Most of all, training the next generation is, as one of our recent trainees put it, a good thing to do!

“A lot of companies want minimum experience that might be hard to get even with volunteer work and the like, so obviously a scheme that trains less experienced archaeologists is a good thing.”

It was important to us that we weren’t playing lip service to training as a way of paying people less, so we decided to keep the training plan short and sweet – 3 months should be enough to get a good grounding in commercial archaeology and to get people with some pre-exiting skills and experience to PCIfA level (Practitioner – the first level of competence defined by CIfA).

The training programme is aimed at people who have genuine interest and aptitude but no commercial experience, though we have found that applicants sometimes do have this, just not the amount most commercial jobs require, so they couldn’t get started on the job ladder. We wanted a way to get people on to that ladder and to keep them moving up through the company, gaining experience and moving to permanent roles over time.

Josh training the team in flint identification

Josh training the team in flint identification

The company ethos is very much that everyone should learn the basics of everything and that knowledge and skills are shared. We’re not heavily departmentalised so staff get to carry out GPS and TST survey, use GIS to produce illustrations for reports, assist with geophysical survey, take their own site photographs and so on – it is possible that this might go as we grow further, but we will try and hold on to this as much as is possible.

Trainees get a formal plan with tasks to sign off and each task has an appointed person to do the sign off. Over three months. The standard plan involves 20 days of fieldwork, 10 days in the finds and archives, eight days post-excavation work and five days survey training, plus time for an induction, basic introduction to standards, H&S and so on. The tasks are tied to National Occupational Standards.

It is not without its problems. The level of training dependant on and workload – one of our recent trainees didn’t dig on a ‘normal’ site for three months as we were working on the sampling of a the top of a paleosol for Mesolithic flints, and this meant that she hadn’t experienced stratigraphic recording. It’s vital to keep balance on site so there are enough experienced staff to support the trainees, and because we’re relatively small, the training experience is also dependent on the availability of particular staff. Good training also relies on good feedback from site supervisors – building on feedback from previous trainees, new posts will include a formal monthly meeting with an appointed mentor…but fieldwork programmes can make implementation of this tricky. Importantly all those involved need to understand the purpose of a training plan. It mustn’t become a race to complete sign off of tasks but be paced to enable time and a genuine understanding to develop.

A Trainee Archaeologist excavating

Trainees work in the field for around 20 days in three months

Giving staff the chance to build on and share their experiences is vital (even if it is potentially a little scary for the management team) and our AAL Xmas lectures, where staff give presentations on aspects of their work throughout the year, are just one way in which we do this.

“You only need to look within the company to see that it’s working with a number of former trainees now in other roles.”

So is it working? Well, since January 2014 AAL have taken on 10 trainees (that isn’t including people like Feenagh who had started before this but were/are still progressing on training plans). Two of those trainees started with the company as short-term volunteers. Six were offered contracts as Project Archaeologist (PA) at the end of their training plans: two have now specialised in non-field areas within the company (archives and DBA), two are currently field PAs, and one left for a non-field promotion outside the company and one has taken a break from archaeology. One trainee could not be given a PA contract due to a downturn in work. Only one traineeship didn’t work out.

“There was a balanced mix of office-based and site-based work that allowed me to develop excavation skills on small-large scale excavations, whilst learning how to make the transition from site material to post-excavation reporting smoother for all involved. All in all, my experience was really quite rounded. I enjoyed it immensely and it gave me the skills to feel confident to work at any site, or in the office”

“I’m very grateful the trainee scheme exists as it allowed me to get into commercial archaeology when it might have otherwise been difficult”

“It gave me a proper view of what commercial archaeology really was and I didn’t feel like my lack of experience prevented me from going on any site or prevented any opportunities … The staff at Allen are all very friendly and helpful which made asking questions, help and generally becoming a part of the team so much easier.”

“I found my trainee programme very beneficial as I previously had no experience digging – either commercial or academic, so was a great opportunity to get into archaeology and be paid for it.”

The numbers we can take on are small – we’re not going to solve the skills shortage single handedly – and I’m not trying to claim we’re perfect, but with a little thought, it is possible for even small companies to create effective, useful and robust training programmes that benefit the trainee and the company in equal measure. The interest we have seen as a relatively new and less well-known company, with applications from across the UK and Europe, is pretty staggering and suggests that we need to find a much better way of serving the next generation.

We’re looking forward to welcoming our latest batch of trainees at the start of May and to building on and improving our training going forwards.

According to a helpful little counter that shows up on my employment record I have been working for Allen Archaeology for 2 years 6 month and 23 days. Nothing particularly ground breaking, but in that period of time I been fortunate enough to work on some incredibly interesting and exciting sites but I’ve also progressed from a Trainee Project Archaeologist to Project Supervisor level and in the process received a staggering amount of training and learned what it means to be a commercial archaeologist along the way.

Taking part in a field school at Nevern Castle while at uni

Taking part in a field school at Nevern Castle while at uni

I have always loved history, but it wasn’t until I started looking at University courses that I realised that when I grew up (!) I actually wanted to be an archaeologist! So in 2010 I went to study Anthropology and Archaeology at Durham University, partly because it was something that I thought would be interesting and partly because they let me live in the castle. It was pretty good in that it gave a very comprehensive overview of archaeology, but like most archaeology degrees lacked in practical aspects; in fact there were no compulsory archaeological fieldwork modules as part of the course. Nonetheless, I left Durham with 8 weeks of field experience, and the overwhelming impression that commercial archaeology may not be something I really wanted to look into; it was a bit too cynical and our yearly “careers” talk made it seem like the commercial world was not an exciting one to work in. So when my degree ended I made the decision to take a year off, earn some money, and then go back and do a masters.

This plan however spectacularly failed. I moved back to Lincolnshire and got a call from AAL (a year after I had applied to be a volunteer with them!) asking if I was available to work and offering to employ me. I started in September 2013 as one of their trainee site assistants, with very little experience of what commercial archaeology was or what was expected of me.

I did have a trowel though; so it was a start.

Where I cut my teeth was at AAL’s colossal North Killingholme project (NKAM) and training was given on the job. I was told what I was expected to do and then left to get on with it; sort of like being thrown in at the deep end and “shadowing” the other project archaeologists when I needed guidance. There was no formal training plan but I think it was a pretty effective way of learning the basics, and there was always someone nearby to help when I got lost.

It was fairly simple archaeology to begin with, putting metre sections through Roman ditches, and the thing I remember most is continuously being squeaked at and asked by the PO on site “Are you happy with those edges?”. It turned into a bit of a game with all the other PA’s on site, lightly mocking this phrase, but it taught me how to excavate quickly and accurately and helped me progress into being a real Project Archaeologist. Learning how to record took me a little longer however, it was a whole new experience being shown how to draw to scale and how to trust my interpretations of features, but I got there eventually and was able to move onto digging larger and more exciting features, like ditch intersections, Roman Kilns, and ring ditches.

Excavating a skeleton in October 2014

Excavating a skeleton in October 2014

That’s one of the things I enjoy about working here, that there is a lot of effort devoted to trying to training staff and to give everyone a rounded knowledge base; everyone learns how to work the survey equipment and is expected to be able to excavate and record a feature from start to finish, and everyone gets some experience in post-ex be it finds processing, writing context summaries, or producing figures. It’s something that I massively benefited from.

The next year was a massive learning curve and I received a lot of training beyond the practical skills I was still learning in the field. I got to handle a lot of the material remains that were coming from sites through washing and processing the finds and I started learning the basics of post-excavation work and about working with GIS programs by digitizing drawings and phasing sites. I spent a lot of time staring in frustration at muddy scans while digitizing plans and sections and at the array of pastel colours used to phase the NKAM sites, . It wasn’t always the most exciting things, but it defiantly helped me become a more rounded archaeologist, and made me realise the importance of properly recording and checking the work we do on site!

DIgging the ring ditch at North Killingholme

DIgging the ring ditch at North Killingholme

At the end of June 2015 positions became available within the company for Project Supervisors and, with the support of my line manager, I applied and was given the job as a trainee supervisor. Unlike my last traineeship, this position had a much more structured training plan and I was given tasks which needed to be signed off by various managers and project officers in order to check my progress. It was a little messy at first as there was still a massive hands on approach, and it took some time to actually be able to put the training plan in place for various reasons, but I started off in a safe place, back at Killingholme guiding our new trainees, before being sent off on some of my own jobs. Like before I started off small; with small scale watching briefs and evaluation sites which over the next few months gradually progressed into slightly larger jobs, with a few other team members to supervise. It took some adjusting to (and a lot of site visits and phone calls asking questions before I got my bearings!), but it was exciting and I got to work on some interesting sites and developed a particular interest in community based archaeology. I had enjoyed working on some of the previous outreach projects such as the open days at North Killingholme and at the Canwick Bomber Command Memorial site in 2014, so when I was given the opportunity to work on a few community projects run with the National Trust I jumped at the chance!

Talking to volunteers on a community dig at Hinton Ampner

Talking to volunteers on a community dig at Hinton Ampner

What changed most with this new role, however, was the responsibilities beyond the fieldwork and learning how to manage a site, and I got the chance to develop more post excavation skills. I learned how to structure reports and produce figures and I spent a lot of time in the office repeating this process until it was second nature. Again it’s not always the most exciting thing, and some days it’s incredibly frustrating and I wish I was outside happily digging ditches, but it is worth it. There is a special sort of pleasure you can take in making a figure look pretty, or getting your teeth stuck into a particularly interesting site you are writing up!

I suppose what I take from all this reminiscing about the considerable range of traineeships and professional development I have experienced within Allen Archaeology over the past two and a half years, is that I’m incredibly proud of my achievements here and, despite a number of stumbles along the way, I am very grateful for the continuous support and guidance I have received at all stages, from everyone within the company. It’s made me the archaeologist I am today and I love my job, especially the community projects and the opportunities to be involved in new team members training, and I hope I give them even a little but as much encouragement and support as I received when I first started.

But I’m still learning.

And I may have realised that now I’m not always joking when I ask people on a site I am supervising if they’re happy with their edges….

Welcome to the first Allen Archaeology blog! We are going to be posting every Friday afternoon little bits and pieces for people to enjoy in their tea breaks. These blogs are going to include exciting things that are going on at the company, profiles of our staff, stories from some of our sites and the things that we do as a commercial unit.

The blogs will give you the chance to hear from staff across the company, from our Trainees to the Directors, and to find out about what it is like to be an archaeologist from the people who are, quite literally, on the ground. We hope to start a conversation about what’s going on in the commercial world, at Allen Archaeology and further afield, so please engage with us!

If you’ve not visited us before why not have a click around our fancy new website and check out who we are and what we do! If you have found your way here then here are some pictures of what we’ve been getting up to this week.

Our directors checking out the video of our excavations at University of Lincoln, made by the Lincoln School of Journalism click here to see it for yourself

Josh is getting started on the Lithics from the Mesolithic site in the centre of Lincoln

Josh Hogue is getting started on the Lithics from the Mesolithic site in the center of Lincoln

Charlotte and Gavin have been out and about undertaking an earthwork survey in Worcestershire

Charlotte and Gavin have been out and about undertaking an earthwork survey in Worcestershire

Look at this beautiful (modern) stratigraphy from Lidl's development site in Dartford

Look at this beautiful stratigraphy from Lidl’s development site in Dartford

Chris has been mapping pottery distributions from one of the North Killingholme sites

Chris has been mapping pottery distributions from one of the North Killingholme sites