By Catherine Coates
This week marked the beginning of my internship at Wessex, an opportunity I am thrilled to have been given. I have experienced the fieldwork side of archaeology and am now keen to get involved with what happens next.
My first week has been very interesting and I am beginning to understand the long and sometimes complicated process of archiving. My mentor Lorraine Mepham has been introducing me to the various elements of the archiving system throughout the week and I have been carrying out a variety of tasks such as preparing archives to be deposited. Additionally, I have been producing letters to send to landowners requesting their permission to deposit finds from their land to their local museum. The week has not been without its challenging moments; I was introduced to the OASIS database on Thursday which requires an awful lot of information that can be difficult to track down.
I look forward to the new experiences and tasks I will be facing over the next five weeks, I have enjoyed my time here so far and I am beginning to think I much prefer archiving to field work – far less muddy!