Working for Wessex

 

Well what can I say, my first few months at Wessex Archaeology have passed by in a blissful blur filled with mud, ditches, cremations and great colleagues!

 

My Name is Martha Page; I am a field technician at the Wessex Archaeology Maidstone office. Before starting my Wessex adventure, I studied BA Archaeology at Cardiff specifically looking at public engagement, social media outreach, British prehistory and my obsession-experimental archaeology and the working of lithics (aka flint knapping!).  I caught the archaeology bug early − as a seven year old − not difficult when you live in Wiltshire and spend your days exploring long barrows and causewayed enclosures.

 

Since graduating I worked for a year with another commercial company, here in the south-east doing largely urban archaeology and environmental processing. But when the time came to move on Wessex was the place to be and I definitely don’t regret it.

 

I have received not only a warm welcome to the team but have also received a variety of training from survey and artefact identification, as well as driving company vehicles and taking on watching briefs. In comparison to my previous experience, my work with Wessex has been largely rural meaning ditches, ditches and (you guessed it) yet more ditches with a few cremation burials, pits and roundhouses thrown in for good measure. I love it, never have I looked forward to getting up and going to work as I do here, and it’s wonderful to fall into bed at the end of the day very tired but very satisfied by a productive day’s digging.

 

Being one of the regional offices, Maidstone has a great team dynamic which I have had the opportunity to be part of and enjoy, especially with all the recent away work we have been doing. Definitely something I would recommend a new archaeologist to try when you are starting your career. 

 

So what next? For me the current goal is to keep working, improving and learning − developing my career and being part of this fantastic company, hope to be able to keep you all up dated again soon!