Archaeology... it's the future!

[Hal Dalwood]

Posted by gorilla:

quote:Following on from the IfA thread (and others I suppose)... where do you see archaeology in 5 to 10 years time? Do you think things will have changed for the better, worse or (sigh) not at all? What would you do to see things changed?

I would like to address gorilla's original question, that started this thread (with apologies for getting distracted during the earlier discussion). Here are some thoughts:

1) I expect that the membership base of IfA will continue to grow, and IfA membership to be nearly unversal among archaeologists within the next 10 years. I think there are a number of reasons why this is likely: the main reason is the underlying government-led push towards stronger self-regulation of professions, and archaeology is being pulled along with this. That means that practitioners of archaeology (in the broadest sense) are going to find it necessary to be members of a professional body (e.g. IfA or IHBC).

2) I think in the next 5 years, most archaeological contracting organisations (and most archaeological consulatancies) will have become IfA Registered Organisations, pushed along by the drive towards stronger self-regulation. I believe that the result will be fewer anomalous approaches to employment - including contracts and terms & conditions. I believe that the result of self-regulation of contractors will be the reduction of bad employment practices, that have been the subject of justified complaints on BAJR for years. This will lead to greater uniformity in contracts and terms and conditions.

This process by itself won't lead to any great improvements in pay, but I do believe that it will level the playing field.

3) Archaeological contracting organisations will address technical training in a more coherent fashion than at present. I believe that the driver for this change is technology, and the unrelenting process of ever cheaper and better kit. Technology has the capacity to reduce staff time on site and hence reduce overall costs, but there is a trade-off with the costs of the kit itself (and especially the replacement costs): within 5 years robust wireless devices for onsite recording will be ridiculously cheap. But to really make the most of the benefits of technology on site, archaeologists are going to need to be given more organised technical training. This training will need to be at a number of levels, as their knowledge and competence increases (this is an aspect of CPD that will be directly relevant to site staff).

4) The virtual melt-down of western capitalism in 2008 is going to have an effect on the profession, but is a bit hard to predict what that effect will be. In the 1980s, new UK economic policies had far-reaching effects. The principle of 'polluter pays' (rather than 'government pays') led eventually to the system of 'contractors', consultants' and 'curators' in archaeology today. Private sector ideas and principles now permeate professional archaeology at all levels.

It seems unlikely that everything will be back to normal by Christmas. It seems possible that the confidence that global capitalism will go on delivering growth forever is permanently dented. Might that lead to fewer giant office blocks being built in the centre of London in the future? Apparantly there are doubts whether the third runway at Heathrow will now be built. At one level, the economic downturn will affect the amount of archaeological fieldwork that takes place over the next five years. But might the effects on the archaeological profession be more fundamental, more structural?


Hal Dalwood

Bad archaeologist, worse husband

[BAJR Host]

Not much to add to that post other than to say... again I can't disagree with any of it.

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[BAJR Host]

After emailing Kathryn about what they are doing about outreach we have the following reply. (so you see they do listen)

quote:Outlined in the IfA's business plan are recruitment targets which detail how many events the IfA should be undertaking per quarter.

These events involve direct contact, though the IfA also undertake activities throughout the year which don't involve direct contact, such as mailing materials to targeted groups.

Recruitment is inevitably a part of other staff members' work (for example the events that Kate Geary is involved with via Prospect).

As a result it is hard to accurately quantify how many events have taken place during the last year, the IfA at least meet the number outlined in the business plan and could make a very broad estimate that it is around 30+ a year, dependent on the work of individual staff members.

Resources as you are aware, are in short supply, but any suggestions of other areas/groups/individuals that should be targeted are welcome and people are free to make these suggestions that the IfA can look into putting into the current schedule.

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[Windbag]

Looking specifically at one point Hal has raised:

quote:Originally posted by Hal Dalwood



3) Archaeological contracting organisations will address technical training in a more coherent fashion than at present. I believe that the driver for this change is technology, and the unrelenting process of ever cheaper and better kit. Technology has the capacity to reduce staff time on site and hence reduce overall costs, but there is a trade-off with the costs of the kit itself (and especially the replacement costs): within 5 years robust wireless devices for onsite recording will be ridiculously cheap. But to really make the most of the benefits of technology on site, archaeologists are going to need to be given more organised technical training. This training will need to be at a number of levels, as their knowledge and competence increases (this is an aspect of CPD that will be directly relevant to site staff).

On the "technology is the future" side of things, I can see the appeal of a paperless site. Many units have started using GPS units for walkovers etc, and some of these units can allow you to add points and polygons along with an electronic form to fill in with each record. However, I reckon it'll be a long time before site assistants are seen filling in context sheets on palmtop computers, primarily because those computers would have to be-
a)waterproof
b)able to resist falls from height onto hard ground
c)futureproof (who wants to invest thousands in a rapidly obsolete technology?)
d)remotely downloadable (oops left the whole site record on a corrupted hard drive)
e)cheap- ("got a big site on, will need to buy half a dozen palmtops")

So I reckon it'll be another good few years yet before we have paperless archaeological sites.

[Hal Dalwood]

Me, I'm a technical ignoramus, as my colleagues will testify, and I'm sure Windbag is right to be cautious. However things do have a habit of changing fast, and I'm not sure that in 2003 anyone could have predicted that by 2008 every digger who works for us would own a mobile phone.

I don't think that the answer will be palmtops - just too small a screen to be very useful as a data interface for excavation. Could it be a version of some piece of kit that the US army has been using in Iraq? By 2013 it will cost very little.

Hal Dalwood

Bad archaeologist, worse husband

[Paul Belford]

Not only that but that all mobile phones now seem to have 5 MP cameras and can email things to people.

Not like it was in my day. Hal is right, the future is coming...

[drpeterwardle]

Windy said

"However, I reckon it'll be a long time before site assistants are seen filling in context sheets on palmtop computers"

and
Hal said

"So I reckon it'll be another good few years yet before we have paperless archaeological sites."

Paperless sites have been around since the 1980s ie West Hesleton.
The technology was tried and largely abandoned. Similarly write top computers were tried in the late 1980s. Drawing with total stations started in the late 1980s and is still with us.

Have to say that I thought everybody had a mobile phone by 2003.

I write this as a break to writing up an experiment on the paperless recording of a grave yard. Worked very well - but paper has its place. A paper plan is much better in the field that a computer.

Peter Wardle
(Sorry to go off topic to archaeology of the past and present!)

[historic building]

My glorious employer is trying to get us to be a 'paperless office' at the moment. This means we are not able to store paper, not that we are not able to use it. I now have a spreadsheet showing the number of times I have printed out each document, used it for the day, and then had to recycle it. Some are now up to 12 or so.

Paper - very useful stuff.

[Hal Dalwood]

quote:Originally posted by drpeterwardle
Have to say that I thought everybody had a mobile phone by 2003.

Back in 2003 my employer provided a mobile to each fieldwork team, as project leaders (let alone diggers) didn't have personal mobiles - they were too expensive.

Hal Dalwood

Bad archaeologist, worse husband

[mercenary]

I feel obligated to report on our "paperless site" which I am currently involved with. It is not entirely paperless because like Dr. Pete I think paper plans are superior in some circumstances.

Hardware problems have required a retreat to tried and tested paper record more than once, but these can be solved.

My main concern so far is that unlike a context sheet, a database in a PDA device doesn't give you a obviously visible reminder of what has been filled in and what hasn't. Also, amendments to finished records are seldom done. The out of sight, out of mind principle is very prevalent with digital recording. God knows what is being missed.
Also, there doesn't seem room in an entirely digital record for annotated and interpretive sketches that are so useful on a paper context sheet.

My hunch is that if archaeology goes for completely digital recording in the future then it is going to subtly change the processes of archaeology in ways that we can't predict. It just isn't a case of replicating a traditional recording system with a different recording medium.