Unitof1 Wrote:The concept of ?community archaeology? is not new (and see Liddle, in prep., for discussion of its development in Leicestershire in the 1970s).

Possibly because of the lack of the forth coming, in prep, it has dawning on me that I don?t know what community archaeology is or for that matter what a community archaeologist does. I have seen the term referring to a curator/ county archaeologist/assistant (also terms which I might add are not to precise). Do they work out of museums. Comarch apparently is freelance at it. Is there a core skill.

The CA victims seem to jump from public to local community to children to archaeological societies

Why not? I have a price which I can double



I think it should read "..and no work for archaeologists" Surely the great unwashed want to trained by a proper archaeologist rather than someone who cant get a teaching qualificfation.

BAJR Wrote:Fraid so Redearth. But as Dino says... it has livened up the debate.

There is a tightrope to walk here... CA is about involvement... Professional is about doing it all the time. Both groups can enjoy a discovery prog about Maya, or the TIme team (ahem) or read about it... the difference comes in the times... a CA group can learn, but come the next time... it still needs the pro to guide, help and encourage... BUT.... BUT... it is the glasshouse for new talent, the breeding ground and training pitch where the next gen of archaeologists comes from. I think there is a specific job for Temporal Contamination Engineers (TCE) as the TCE becomes integrated into the development and construction idustry, but let us never forget why we (should ) do it... for the thrill of discovery... whether a 19th century cellar or a villa. Currently I am looking at a landscape in Croatia which they want to be Roman and Illyrian, its more 15th - 20th century... but wow... its amazing... i excites me, every wall, every track opens the past.. and as one who came up through society to digger to what I am now (gawd knows) I feel it in my bones... every time I take a group or train them to use a dumpy or show how to recognise building construction changes to record a building... they actually want to know... now they won't be able to be commercial... without com Archs ... but the passion... the desire to learn and seek out knowledge... now thats archaeology.

Dinosaur Wrote:Speaking as someone who came from CA but has then spent over 30 years digging for a 'living' (or more recently actually for quite a decent living), I'm all for well-targeted CA involvement. Wierdly I seem to working in practically the only bit of Britain where there aren't really that many groups we could get involved, although it's been good on the occasions it has happened for both sides. A good example was a job I did 7 or 8 years ago where, owing to a total f**k-up by a curator we were having to remove a chunk of stratified Roman archaeology mostly by machine and record what we could with no time and no a stupid budget, but we got 'leant' about 30 members of an actually fairly distant archaeological society (different county) who came out a couple of weeekends, and with a couple of us who were up for doing the weekends for free we hand-dug and recorded a lot of what would have been machined away the following Monday - they really enjoyed themselves and we massively enhanced the quality of the site record. Had no effect on the 'commercial' part of the job (they only did 'work' over-and-above the WSI etc and outside the contract, the client kept a good eye on that!) but was good for us, good for the unpaid enthusiasts, and good for archaeology in general. Should be more collaborations like that :face-approve:

RedEarth Wrote:Oh, for goodness sake!