FIELDWORKLOGISTICS.COM

Staff and specialisms

Fieldworklogistics.com is run by Nigel Larkin BA Msc, and Phil Rye B(Eng) MSc.

With our extensive contacts in the national museums, regional museums, and universities throughout the U.K. and elsewhere we can quickly and easily locate qualified and experienced personnel relevant to your needs. However, we are also realistic about budget limitations and therefore we can make use of trained, experienced, and enthusiastic volunteers and we always try our hardest to help you obtain sponsorship and negotiate the loan or donation of equipment, or negotiate reduced rates of hire.

When not organising fieldwork, Nigel Larkin is employed mostly as a paleaeontological preparator and conservator. He spent five years in full time employment in The Natural History Museum’s Palaeontology Conservation Unit, and worked for six years in the Conservation and Natural History Departments of Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service (the biggest area museums service in the UK). Nigel’s undergraduate degree in Environmental Sciences was followed by a Master of Science postgraduate degree in Vertebrate Palaeontology at University College, London.

As well as regularly undertaking a variety of fieldwork and natural history conservation freelance work, Nigel is a part-time tutor in Earth Sciences and Prehistory at the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of East Anglia, and is an Associated Member of the Ancient Hominid Occupation of Britain Project - a three-year NERC-funded project co-ordinated by the Natural History Museum, the British Museum and various Universities.

Nigel is a trained Alpine mountaineer (American Alpine Institute) and has climbed in the Rockies, Alaska, Iceland, Norway, the Alps, Dolomites, Pyrenees and the Atlas mountains. He is also an experienced rock and ice climber, pot-holer, canoeist, cross-country-skier and snowboarder and whilst in the Antarctic with the British Antarctic Survey was trained in shortwave radio maintenance, skidoo driving and maintenance, piloting powered boats in extreme conditions and co-piloting light aircraft (for more details see “Adventures in the Antarctic”). All these skills and experiences clearly have some relevance to many types of fieldwork – for instance climbing cliffs to get to remote caves for biological sampling, handling boats to reach coastal sites, keeping radio equipment maintained, and being aware of health and safety issues at all times. Nigel has a certificate in Advanced Medicine for Remote Foreign Travel (from Wilderness Medical Training), has an amateur radio licence, a full, clean, driving licence, and has gained a great deal of experience in driving transit vans, lorries and Land Rovers including off-road situations, specialising in ice and snow conditions.

Nigel has published several academic papers in peer-reviewed journals in subject areas ranging from the transport of fossilised hyaena droppings in fluvial environments to volatile organic compounds found in plastic storage containers. He is currently learning to sail and speaks conversational French and Spanish.

Phil Rye is an engineer by training, but also has qualifications in archaeology. He has a great deal of experience running the very practical side of fieldwork, organising logistics, equipment, and personnel. He has been site manager for many excavations in the UK and abroad, including:

- The Boxgrove Homonid Project (West Sussex, UK) where he directed up to 70 students at a time and was one of the site photographers and a scientific illustrator,

- The Makapansgat Hominid Survey (Swartkrans Valley, South Africa, 1998-2001) where he was responsible for all equipment and up to 30 personnel and directing excavation strategy, and

- In 2001 a field trip funded by Oxford Brookes University to survey the North of Morocco for cave deposits bearing evidence of Neandertals and their contemporaries, where he was required to drive personnel and equipment to remote mountainous sites, set up the equipment, liaise with the Moroccan counterparts and was responsible for site photography and illustration.

Phil also works occasionally as a site assistant to an archaeological consultant, Dr Francis Wenban-Smith. This involves conducting watching briefs to record any prehistoric contexts that might be disturbed by foundations on construction projects. Phil has a wide range of geological and archaeological experience that is important for recognizing prehistoric levels and artifacts and for the appraisal of these sites. This work usually entails diplomatic consultation with representatives from the engineering and development firms as well as planning officers and county archaeologists from the local council.

Phil’s other love is botany. As well as being guest lecturer on the occasional botanical-orientated Meditteranean cruise, he is a gifted botanical and archaeological illustrator with many examples published, undertaking much freelance illustration for the Natural History Museum’s Botany and Palaeontology Departments. He has also worked both full and part-time for the Palaeontology Department of The Natural History Museum, fulfilling several roles.

Email: enquiries@fieldworklogistics.com

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