There are many different things that come under the category fieldwok, so don't despair if you don't like the outdoors. This info is on the Approval form, this bit has a few comments and explanations.

More detail on what the experience can be like can be found in the 'Tales from the Front Line" section of "Fieldwork".

Fieldwork:

Great if you like getting outside, usually involves living with random people in very close quarters with limited hygiene and very early mornings. Also by far most fun, shy or not, you will make some very good friends.

Excavation: Scraping back the ground with trowels, mattocks and other sharp objects and drawing them afterwards.

Surveying and Sampling: Walking up and down in lines on a patch of ground counting, or collecting surface finds; Walking round with stripy sticks or prisms on sticks to measure topography; collecting samples, such as by coring to be processed later.

Geophysics: Ahh, machines that go 'Ping!'. OK perhaps only beep. Walking about with these to gather that all important picture before you dig holes.

Trench Supervision: Only really something for later years - running a trench, organising the diggers, doing paper work.

Lab work:

It's indoors, regularly available in Edinburgh (saves money) and questionable hygiene isn't imposed on you.

It's amazing how much there is to do afterwards, ranging from the processing of environmental material (smashing stuff up and baking it) to artifact analysis (looking at things very closely to see what category they fall into, use wear signs etc...) or of course supervising such things (again for the later years)

Museum and Archive Work

Indoors and can help you get jobs at the end of it.

Archiving bit: Cataloguing artifacts, ecofacts (bags of soil and such like) and paperwork in a way understandable in the future. Involves lots of numbers, labels and moving things around.

The other bits: Preparation of museum displays and publications for the public.

Public Archaeology

May involve explaining things to people, dressing even. Or just the background display creation, can be both indoors and out, a real mix.

Design of displays: Designing displays, can even go into reconstruction archaeology.

Public understanding of archaeology: Working as a guide

Planning and heritage management: With Historic Scotland for example.

If you have any comments you wish to add to these, please get in touch (details in contacts section)