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+--- Thread: Sensible Archaeology? (/showthread.php?tid=3498)
Sensible Archaeology? - Sparky - 17th October 2010
Oddin,
There are already agreed frameworks around which we should be working to. I haven't come across the establishment of fairy dialogue but I enjoy the arguments pro and con.
I agree with the tool-kit business. Actually, I quite like a lot that has PP brought to the empirical word of archaeololgy. It was well needed sense.
Maybe we need more responiblity in how we design our projects and ultimately produce reports. But maybe our monitors need to take care over interpretation; i.e. insist that excavators don't ignore specialist reports. e.g. the Wilsfor Shaft where crucial environmental evidence was overlooked in favour of a ritual conclusion (for one out of thousands). I've worked with countless individuals who are / were great excavators but when it came to reporting, they constantly failed to see the significance of specialist reports, instead following preconceived ideas, presumabely hatched from evidence lacking theory top-heavy university courses. A shame and a waste.
To tell you the truth, I wouldn't be surprised that most of us agree on much that we've disussed. Pluarlism seems to be the concensus. Perhaps keyboard-clouded.
Kevin'
"In debt I owe someone a fiver, maybe I should try my hand at brag...ninetynine percent of gargoyles look like Bob Todd."
If you know it then you know phenomenology.
Sensible Archaeology? - vulpes - 17th October 2010
so it's Universities that are to blame, filling peoples heads with all these ideas. Surely all archaeological reports are empirical? Well, unless you just stay at home and make it all up. Kind of - archaeology as far-fetched, somebody's changed their tune, pub boredom. Euphemisms Audrey, euphemisms.
isn't Pluralism what the (il)Liberal Democrats are engaged in?
Quote:keep it it simple
What? Even if it's complicated? OK then. :face-approve:
Quote:Telling the storySurely you mean 'telling a story' BAJR ? :p
Quote:Since 99.9% of the output from commercial archaeology is aimed at clientsIs it? Really, what, monographs, journal articles and popular publications are aimed at clients? Let's not confuse planning related grey literature with final dissemination here eh?
Sensible Archaeology? - BAJR - 18th October 2010
If you cannot take a complicated concept and make it simple, then you need a lesson in dissemination. Love to be at one of your talks... xx(
Complication has its place, but you can say things in such a way as not to look like a wnkr! A transient linear mobility transportation zone perhaps is a better way to describe a road :face-confused:
and yup it is the story... after all, a story makes it look that everything takes place in isolation.. I prefer the holistic approach of everything affecting everything else. so this is the story of which we are able to tell a part . When it comes to smartassness I can just hold my own with the foxy
Sensible Archaeology? - vulpes - 18th October 2010
ooh.. I never had you pegged as the Dirk Gently of archaeology! Thanks for the simple, authoritative, explanation.
Do people really use road when TLMTZ would suffice?!
Sensible Archaeology? - BAJR - 18th October 2010
i kind of like the idea of holistic archaeology telling a bit of the story...
don't thank me... i was just being simple. :p
Sensible Archaeology? - BRahn - 18th October 2010
BAJR:
So for 'dissemination' read 'talking', we should probably drop your use of 'holistic' entirely and I see you've coined a new word-that's-not-in-a-dictionary (smartassness). :face-stir:
'Complication' is frequently in the mind of the audience. Or so I had to remind myself the last time someone asked me for a 'simple' explanation of a 'simple' topic (What is the UN for?)...and then visibly tuned out before I'd said five words.
Sensible Archaeology? - Odinn - 18th October 2010
Sparky Wrote:"In debt I owe someone a fiver, maybe I should try my hand at brag...ninetynine percent of gargoyles look like Bob Todd."Long time since I heard that one. You inspired me to return to my vinyl collection and play it. :face-approve:
Sensible Archaeology? - BAJR - 18th October 2010
Quote:I see you've coined a new word-that's-not-in-a-dictionaryaaaaarg its catching
Quote:'Complication' is frequently in the mind of the audience.Good point... It is true that you can simplify to the point where it becomes impossible to explain, but conversely you can complicate to the point of it being impossible to understand.
My concepts of dissemination in reality encompass 6 'levels' (in no particular order - The Grey Lit report, The Research Article, The Interpretation Panel,/Leaflet, The Talk/Lecture, The Magazine Article, The Book. Each has its own requirements and 'rules' I would contend, but to overcomplicate just for the sake of it... uuuurg! Its probably why I have never gone more than 5 pages into a Will Self novel
Sensible Archaeology? - kevin wooldridge - 18th October 2010
Sparky Wrote:Kevin'
"In debt I owe someone a fiver, maybe I should try my hand at brag...ninetynine percent of gargoyles look like Bob Todd."
If you know it then you know phenomenology.
Unfortunately Sparky I am not only old enough to remember other HMHB classics such as 'Effin 'ell its Fred Titmus'....I also have fond memories of Fred Titmus himself!!
Sensible Archaeology? - Stuart Rathbone - 19th October 2010
Bah, who said anything about running away? Went off to have a good think about things is more like. Interestingly in the mean time I have had two commisions for articles about the CSA and this discussion over here seems to have taken on a life of its own...maybe there's something worth discussing?
I'm stll busy cleaning up the language and re-writing the pieces on the CSA group page, it's ongoing but I think in another weeks time it should all be looking and reading better.
Interesting thing I read last night, and I'm relying on memory here. Graeme Warren reviewing Vicky Cummings book on the Irish Sea in the Neolithic.
The comment went something like,
the language used is clear and well written but leaves the discussion feeling a little lightweight
not that the discussion was lightweight, but that the simple language makes it feel lightweight
well then that's just posing