Archaeologists pleased to have found nothing! :-)

[garybrun]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/8051902.stm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[mercenary]

Christ on a bike!

Why does this always raise eyebrows? Preservation In-situ may be deeply deeply flawed, but until developers and/or taxpayers are willing to pay for madcap archaeology chasing operations it won't happen! It's an insult to our professionalism.

I think I understand why the media willfully refuse to understand this simple premise, as they have their own political agendas. This however appears to be the tiresome "bash the expert" hobby that seems to be sweeping the nation.

Is this what you are indulging in Gary?

[trowelmonkey]

I didn't read the beeb reporting that way at all. The reporter plays "everyman," who's never given archaeology much thought. Everyman learns that the purpose of archaeology is not to hold up development AND that it is a constantly improving discipline.

Even if I do have big issues with preservation in situ as it is practiced.

[mercenary]

Hmmm... Perhaps, but they felt the need to say that the archaeologist was "pleased" in quotations to suggest that neither the archaeologist nor the reporter really believed it.

[BAJR Host]

:)

I love finding nothing... makes the report easy!

"Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage."
Niccolo Machiavelli

[mercenary]

Me too! And probably every commercial arch the world over. Helps the bottom line enormously.[8D]

[Austin Ainsworth]

Hosty, I also used to love finding nothing - made the report easier and allowed me to get off to the next job where there might have been something.

Can't help but agree with mercenary - Gary, why did you post this?

Surely not an excuse for a detectorist to take a snide and sly dig at archaeologists?

(Taking my moderators hat off for this one and putting on my old faithful field archaeologists one}.

[garybrun]

quote:[i]
Can't help but agree with mercenary - Gary, why did you post this?

Surely not an excuse for a detectorist to take a snide and sly dig at archaeologists?

HI Austin.
No digs at archaeologists at all.
Archaeology in the news.... on the BBC.
The "pleased to have found nothing" caught my attention.
I thought it would be a good post for debate as I know there are many differences of opinion regarding "Preservation in situe"

While I am writing why does everyone seem to think I want to "score points" over archaeologists all the time?
I am on the Internet everyday, visit this site everyday and have done for a number of years. You cant expect me to think like an archaeologists... because I am not one and haven't got a clue.
Don't get me wrong I have learnt a lot visiting here regarding your discipline. If you look through my posts over all the years... how many have been bashing archaeologists?

Many must realize the way that the general public perceive "British Archaeology" needs to be worked upon and Davids community projects is a great way of doing that.

Yes I am a metal detectorist....and I do love my Heritage.
While I agree that the disciplines of archaeology and metal detecting will really never meet as they are at odds with each other when you look at it finally in reality. BUT... the two areas can gain a lot of knowledge and support and help each other in understanding the past... if only certain people could look at the benefits instead of the few negatives. I am an event manager and one of the sayings I always hold onto and agree with is "nobody remembers the good jobs... only the bad ones".

Archaeologists shouldn't be afraid of criticism (this post was not made to criticize). I think a few got into their "archaeologist protective mode". Archaeologists need to get a good publicity manager.. especially in the hard times that are around and will continue for quite a while yet. The general public need to see why so much money is being spent on digging this or digging that (excavating sorry)and why it is important. Many people live for today and think of tomorrow... why we need to think of the past needs to be explained.

Anyway... why is it that the papers always seem to get excited about "Roman Archaeology" all the time. How much more do you think is left for archaeology to discover about the Romans??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[BAJR Host]

Made me laugh anyway...

I don't think it was meant as a dig... and indeed, it is worth looking at the concept.. of what this represents.

As a commercial company, finding nothing was both great.. BUT it was also another dissapointment as an archaeologist. even more so when you find something and then stop... we are after all in the business of learning about the past, rather than jsut learning about where the past is (in many cases)

And beileve it or not there is plenty still to learn about the Romans... next year - the 'anniversary' of the Roman withdrawl.. is going to be an exciting one... where things ain't what they seem!

I also agree... we feel so defensive sometimes - we can get a bit prickly... just like detectorists.. :)

so... no offense taken from this angle.. and I am happy that none was intended

"Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage."
Niccolo Machiavelli

[trowelmonkey]

Gary, I didn't take it that way at all. It's the sort of article some one from the inside looking out would find eye-catching. Having watched your YouTube posts (yes, some of us do pay attention) I think you're one of the least archaeology bashing people I've come across. We don't do PR too well, do we?

[garybrun]

"even more so when you find something and then stop... we are after all in the business of learning about the past, rather than jsut learning about where the past is (in many cases)"

That's hard to do... and that's why teaching detecotists this way of thinking is also hard to do. But the message is getting through.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[Austin Ainsworth]

(still wearing my archaeologists hat, not the moderators one)

Sorry Gary not buying this, I haven't got time to trawl the archives to prove my point (maybe somebody else has the time?) but believe me I do read every single post and there's something about yours that stick in my throat. Sly subtle anti-archaeologist innuendo which when challenged turn into wide-eyed innocent replies don't make it for me. I'm fully in support of Hosty's efforts to bring the detectorist and archaeological communities closer together but, in my opinion, some of your posts are a brake on progress not an accelerator to it.

[garybrun]

"Sly subtle anti-archaeologist innuendo which when challenged turn into wide-eyed innocent replies don't make it for me."

Well Mr Austin... now you have your moderator hat off.
I think your talking through your bottom.
Actions speak louder than words and I don't believe you know what your talking about.

I can definitely say I'm not the sort of guy who would say something and water it down just to make people feel happy. Nor do I pretend to be someone who I am not.
What you see is what you get.

How many metal detectorists post on this site???

Some of you need to get of your "high horses" and explain to the general public why you are worthy of being payed by the tax payer¨and why archaeologists seem to think that ONLY THEY can be guardians of the heritage.
I haven't got the time either... but I will go through them all and see and will post link (567 as of today.). Posts looked at in a positive way and a negative way... then you can come back again and prove your point.


ps. Just because I don't agree with some posts doesn't mean I'm archaeologist bashing. Im happy to see your true opinion now.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[Austin Ainsworth]

quote:Originally posted by garybrun

"Sly subtle anti-archaeologist innuendo which when challenged turn into wide-eyed innocent replies don't make it for me."

Well Mr Austin... now you have your moderator hat off.
I think your talking through your bottom.
Actions speak louder than words and I don't believe you know what your talking about.

I can definatly say Im not the sort of guy who would say something and water it down just to make people feel happy. Nor do I pretend to be someone who I am not.
What you see is what you get.

How many metal detectorists post on this site???

Some of you need to get of your "high horses" and explain to the general public why you are worthy of being payed by the tax payer¨and why archaeologists seem to think that ONLY THEY can be gaurdians of the heritage.
I havnt got the time either... but I will go through them all and see and will post link. Posts looked at in a positve way and a negative way... then you can come back again and prove your point.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.



I'll look forward to your reply, I'm away for a couple of weeks so don't take a lack of response personally. See you in a couple of weeks when we can pick up this discussion again.

[garybrun]

quote:Originally posted by Austin Ainsworth
I'll look forward to your reply, I'm away for a couple of weeks so don't take a lack of response personally. See you in a couple of weeks when we can pick up this discussion again.

Cool.
It will take a couple of days to go through em all. :face-approve:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[garybrun]

quote:Originally posted by garybrun

[quote]Originally posted by Austin Ainsworth
I'll look forward to your reply, I'm away for a couple of weeks so don't take a lack of response personally. See you in a couple of weeks when we can pick up this discussion again.

Cool.
It will take a couple of days to go through em all. :face-approve:
While you are waiting a little back ground information...
http://www.bajr.org/BAJRForum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1843






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[BAJR Host]

lets calm it down

Oz is with me in Croatia.. and I respect him greatly .. I also know Gary personally and respect him too.

lets keep it coolsville. this is BAJR Forum not britarch after all.. :)

"Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage."
Niccolo Machiavelli

[mercenary]

I don't want to inflame things, but I too have noticed that Gary (and he's by no means alone in this)can't resist a story that makes archs look bad. I have some respect for Gary in that he is willing to engage with us and there is much honest exchange, so its not really about him personally.

What I'm more interested in is why archaeologists make such easy targets. My suspicion is that there is a wider cultural move into disbelieving/ridiculing the "experts" and that archaeologists shouldn't take it personally. It probably happens in every profession. For example the medical establishment dealing with crackpot alternative therapies, and patients who know better.

Much is made of archaeologists inability to engage without patronising those outside the profession. I don't believe it for a second. I suspect the opposite. I wonder if it's exactly our willingness to engage and our professional responsibility to disseminate to all and sundry that makes us easy targets.

I just don't think other professions put up with the expert bashing like we do. Do medics? Lawyers? Architects. I don't really know. Anyone?

[BAJR Host]

If it makes people feel a bit better... on a detecting forum, where indeed some good old fashioned misinformation and archi bashing was happening I put it straight .. the whys the reasons, the unfair nature of the claims... so I do try and make a fair balance.

With respect to gary.. there is much to tell.. that both of us have been dealing with in the background... so... I can tell you, that Gary is not bashing us... the great unwashed.. :0) he may indeed be rattling the cage of those that feel they can be supercillious and pompous.. and fortunately, there are not many here... perhaps its time to change? for all of us!

"Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage."
Niccolo Machiavelli

[Sparky]

I think the problem here is that it was Gary who posted a funny article which I assume most of the members of this site have found amusing. But because he is a metal-detectorist and has voiced some opinions which don't meet with everyone's approval, it has been seen as archaeology-bashing. If it was one of us archaeologists who had posted it, no one would have taken a blind bit of notice of the possibility of any hidden agenda, and laughed it away as one of thoses things and lesson learnt.

[BAJR Host]

I think so... Gary has also contact me to assure me that no offence was meant.

and as I have said.. on a detecting forum I am defending archaeologists for misunderstadning raised by this same article. And have been listened too. I may add.

"Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage."
Niccolo Machiavelli

[m300572]

The quote in the article suggests thatthis was an evaluationand the "pleased to have found nothing" is balanced by there being a lot of fragle and significant archaeology in the area. Possibly a cross between the archaeologist oversimplifying forth press and sub-editing to take it a bit more amusing.

Reading between the lines it appears to be "We excavated to the depth that the development would disturb or destroy and found no significant archaeological remains - the developer will be preserving the archaeology below the level of the development by minimising the depth of disturbance".

Finding nothing in an evaluation is, as various people have pointed out, not a bad thing, apart from the point of view of the County's development control archaeologist having to tell the developer why he insisted on the developer spending money when there was no archaeology there! (Been there, done that!!)

[BAJR Host]

I think I have your T-shirt as well!

"Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage."
Niccolo Machiavelli

[kevin wooldridge]

I think Gary's point about the public perception of archaeologists is legitimate. Whilst on occassions there are media reports that are nothing but positive, it does seem that some sections and representatives of the media can't help but revert to a rather cartoonish stereotype of archaeology and archaeologists, often not allowing for the right of reply by the defamed archaeologist or archaeologists.

Mind you its not just restricted to the UK. A report in a Norwegian newspaper a coupla years back asked a selection of Norwegian farmers what they felt to be the biggest hindrance/threat to their livelihoods. Although Spanish fishermen (???!!!) were by far and widely acknowledged to be the biggest threat to Norwegian agriculural enterprise, archaeologists came second, some distance ahead of the third-placed cheap (and therefore potentially poisonous!!) food imports from the EU. Needless to say the newspaper in question having established an 'agenda for concern' frequently followed-up stories of this ilk....







With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...

[garybrun]

HI Kevin.
I still have that article here.
I think many Norwegain farmers are afraid that they will have to pay for the archaeological dig.. and the paper highlighted that article.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[mercenary]

So does archaeology attract more ridicule from the public than other professions? Pondering this further, I realized that public engaging fields like archaeology seem to get a lot of flack; medicine and teaching spring to mind. Less public engaging professions I suspect don't. Architecture? Engineering? Geology?

If this is true I find it ironic and essentially unfair that archaeologists are criticized for not engaging enough!

[garybrun]

quote:Originally posted by mercenary

So does archaeology attract more ridicule from the public than other professions? ......

If this is true I find it ironic and essentially unfair that archaeologists are criticized for not engaging enough!

I agree to you it may seem unfair.
Its exactly the same way a metal detectorist feels when he is recording his heritage and is belittled by few within the archaeology profession. (this is not a dig but a parallel)

The thing is here... while it may seem unfair... why do the general public have that perception and how can you improve the image?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[kevin wooldridge]

Gary, I recently saw the Norwegian movie 'Detektor' about a psychiatrist whose hobby to get away from his daily dealings with seriously disturbed patients, an over possesive mother and the memory of a mysteriously dead father was to go out with his best friend metal detecting at the weekends.

Apart from the shock of recognizing one of the detectorist extras in the movie (!), I thought the movie actually portrayed detectorists in a pretty fair way (and it was the other psychiatrists, parents and members of Oslo Chamber orchestra who were the real villains of the piece!!) Not sure this movie was ever released in the UK....

With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...

[garybrun]

HI Kevin.
I know of the film but haven't yet seen it.

I myself work with ADHD children and metal detecting has a really positive effect on the children.
Also I know personally about using it for phyclogical problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce70k5ewGpA

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
http://www.ukdfd.co.uk
Recording Our Heritage For Future Generations.

[afarensis]

'lets keep it coolsville. this is BAJR Forum not britarch after all.. :)'

Doesn't this go against your AUP? :)

[mercenary]

quote:Doesn't this go against your AUP? :)

Huh?

Anyway, I'm clearly on my own here, but I'll carry on.


quote:The thing is here... while it may seem unfair... why do the general public have that perception and how can you improve the image?)


I think the conclusion I'm groping my way slowly towards is that many professions are routinely mocked (and I'm not talking just constructive criticism here), and the more engagement with the public the more opportunity to attract mockery. There is I fear a large and growing taste for proving the "experts" wrong.

I suspect that professions like teaching and medicine, where the public is the point of the profession learn to accept a certain level of mockery as the price of dealing with the public. Other professions, where the public is not central, just ignore it, and don't try to engage. Archaeology is somewhere in between. The subject of study is not the public, (at least not the modern version) yet unusually and rightly engages to a high degree.

I'm starting to think we should ignore the inevitable expert bashing, and rather than trying to improve our professional image we should get thicker skinned. I have not seen a discernable change in perceptions of archaeology from developers or public in the 15 years I have been trying to explain it to these groups. At what point do we stop trying, and accept that for much of the population we are seen as at best an irrelevance, but more likely an obstacle?

More importantly we should treat blanket accusions that we don't engage with those outside the profession as absurd. It is a facile but innaccurate argument.

I suppose thats an accusation I'm not prepared to engage with.

[Paul Belford]

I think a better comparison is made not when looking at "the professions" (medicine, law, architecture etc.) but when looking at other scientists and researchers. Think about the Beagle Mars project and its principal scientist, portrayed by the media as a hapless boffin. Or researchers in crop science who are routinely lambasted as creators of "frankenstein foods". Just a thought.

[Paul Belford]

On the same line of thought, this "Science News Cycle" cartoon shows a scenario familiar to many of us...

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174

[Steven]

quote:Originally posted by Paul Belford

I think a better comparison is made not when looking at "the professions" (medicine, law, architecture etc.) but when looking at other scientists and researchers. Think about the Beagle Mars project and its principal scientist, portrayed by the media as a hapless boffin. Or researchers in crop science who are routinely lambasted as creators of "frankenstein foods". Just a thought.




Hi chaps
Perhaps we deserve to be the brunt of jokes, after all we have just spent the last 2 pages excavating our own navels:face-stir:

Steven

[Sparky]

quote:I think a better comparison is made not when looking at "the professions" (medicine, law, architecture etc.) but when looking at other scientists and researchers. Think about the Beagle Mars project and its principal scientist, portrayed by the media as a hapless boffin. Or researchers in crop science who are routinely lambasted as creators of "frankenstein foods". Just a thought.


I remember the press portraying the excavation of the minibus as a weird and mind boggling exercise

:face-approve:

[trowelmonkey]

I thought that was a weird and mind boggling exercise as well. Oh, I know what it was all about in theory, but the skill set for doing a good job of it already exists; both in forensics and the Annalist school of history. It's not that I have an archaeological cut off date, but that the exercise seemed to be a tautology with archaeology being applied where it wasn't needed (ie other disciplines have the bases covered and frankly in this instance would've done a much better job).

[Paul Belford]

As you would expect, I am obliged to defend the Transit Van excavations! I think actually that archaeology offers something on top of those other disciplines... it is the [u]combination</u> of history, forensics, anthropology, sociology, art history, material culture studies, materials science, metallurgy and so-on which makes archaeology uniquely best-placed to investigate everything.

[jcmaloney]

"it is the combination of history, forensics, anthropology, sociology, art history, material culture studies, materials science, metallurgy and so-on which makes archaeology uniquely best-placed to investigate everything."

Perfectly put and relevant to Gary`s original post.Archaeologists will know about pre-assesment excavation and be tolerant enough to realise that preserving whatever lies beneath is better left there for future generations,technologies etc.
Joe Publics perception of archaeologists is gleaned from the media and if that media headlines a story as they have here most won`t bother to read the text or least still think about what is said!

We are all doing our bit in different ways. Detectorists are generally randomly sampling out of context items that are in the tumble dryer of plough soil.When recorded in a format for all parties to use this can lead the proffesionals to specific sites and/or learn about very small contributions to the bigger picture of our past.

Anyway...I`ll shut up now ! [8D]

Today is tomorrows yesterday.