Pete’s off to A Land Down Under!

Yes, I’m going to be a Man at Work! That’s why there haven’t been many posts recently as I’ve been planning a trip to Australia. Well it isn’t a trip, I’ve been invited to work on a town bypass scheme digging Aboriginal sites, this is all I really know at present,

“Town bypasses will be constructed around the towns of Tarcutta and Woomargama in regional NSW. Each bypass will travel through greenfield areas, crossing prominent hills, creeks and significant stretches of land. Over 50 Aboriginal archaeological sites have been identified within the proposed route of the various bypasses. Some of these sites are very significant ceremonial places, gender specific locations (e.g. women’s sites, initiation sites) or representative examples of the region’s archaeological past yielding thousands of artefacts.”

Sounds interesting, it’s a bypass near the towns of Wagga Wagga and Albury Wodonga and I’ll be working with Aboriginal archaeologists as well. So I might give a digger’s eye view of digging in Oz as well as the usual fascinating news that normally populate the pages of A Place Odyssey, you lucky people!

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November

Well, I got a merit for my MA, I may have mentioned I was writing a dissertation…less than I wanted probably what I deserved, I think the other Pete did similarly well. I am now working in Gloucestershire, Roman burials. Most of them of them are done, maybe a couple left, which would be nice.

Anyhow, I had applied for a few other jobs before starting this one, which amazingly is only 10 minutes drive from where I’m staying. I applied for TVAS, PCA and recently Wessex, all of which were not offering accomodation with the jobs, even Wessex in which I know both their offices are over an hour away. I don’t think this is a good way to go for diggers in commercial archaeology. I suppose they can get away with it due to the lack of demand for us at the moment, but it’s not a good move. Anyone got any comments about this?

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August

So the summer is upon us and we’ve all been very busy as is evident from the lack of exciting posts! I spent a week digging in north Wales at Abergwyngregyn. It’s the third season of work there and a return after a couple of years off. The weather was changeable at best but there should be some good results.  I’m now writing my dissertation on upland rural settlements of northern Wales from the late medieval period. PeteT went off to Fountains Abbey and dug part of an old manor house. He started off surveying the area and doing some geophysics with Drew then Clare and I did a bit of digging. Luis has disappeared off to Spain but is due for an eminent return. Drew and Clare have got the summer off from academic work as they’re studying again next year, the lucky pair, although Clare has been wandering around Broomhead Moor again looking for triangular stones!

As an aside, I have just found a rather nice short video of a large landscape, the World, and how it is seen from space. This is part of the Bella Gaia project, have a look at the video here with the project homepage here, http://www.bellagaia.com/

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