trowel fodder
n.— «Excavations are often very expensive or simply use students as “trowel fodder,” providing no training at all.» —“Archaeology in Further Education” by Dave Jones Education and the Historic Environment Mar. 2, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If you take your finger and run it down your breastbone, and the end, there’s a little pit. In the 15th century, that little hollow just after the bone was called the heartspoon. This indentation is also called the pit of the stomach, or epigastric...
In a 1968 list of Cheyenne High School slang that ran in newspapers around the United States, Clyde, written like the man’s name, meant one’s head or mind. The Wyoming students’ examples included Use your Clyde! and put it out of your Clyde...