1st May 2005, 12:02 PM
actually troll, rather than being seen as heritage dustmen/women, archaeologists in Australia are still a novelty (or slight pain in the arse)on-site. The community at large, and labourers on-site still dont have enough exposure to archaeologists to take us for granted yet.
There are probably two major reasons why Australian Archaeology probably wont go the way of the UK practices:
1. Our historical archaeology is only a couple of hundred years old, so is bound to be important to someone (dont you knock down my bloody pub!!), which sort contributes to a national identity that possibly may not exist quite as strongly if a developer in Britain wants to build over a Roman market (I am speculating here, please dont take offence if i'm wrong).
2. Aboriginal Archaeology is heavily protected and Native Australians has a certain degree of autonomy in how their heritage is managed (I know its not perfect, but at least there is some legislative protection and I know from experience that Aust archs have great respect for native issues- again, dont shoot me if i have misinterpreted the reality of the situation!) so it offers more protection to Aboriginal sites than the current Romans living in Britain can to their Roman Market, if you see my point.
While this doesnt mean that we wont end up with shonky archaeologists, and I believe that there are already problems with amateur archaeologists (bottle collectors), the movement towards heritage management, possibly triggered by awareness of native title and transferred to the historical stuff, has perhaps seen some legislation pre-empt some of the problems that you have raised in this and other threads.
Still, the basic requirement is that the people doing the digging are trained properly both in theory and practice- and ethically too. As long as there is somebody out there prepared to do any job as quick as they can, for the lowest price, etc, etc, then any commercial industry is going to end up ****ed. I have seen this in other industries. Thats capitalism for you.
Rant over for now
There are probably two major reasons why Australian Archaeology probably wont go the way of the UK practices:
1. Our historical archaeology is only a couple of hundred years old, so is bound to be important to someone (dont you knock down my bloody pub!!), which sort contributes to a national identity that possibly may not exist quite as strongly if a developer in Britain wants to build over a Roman market (I am speculating here, please dont take offence if i'm wrong).
2. Aboriginal Archaeology is heavily protected and Native Australians has a certain degree of autonomy in how their heritage is managed (I know its not perfect, but at least there is some legislative protection and I know from experience that Aust archs have great respect for native issues- again, dont shoot me if i have misinterpreted the reality of the situation!) so it offers more protection to Aboriginal sites than the current Romans living in Britain can to their Roman Market, if you see my point.
While this doesnt mean that we wont end up with shonky archaeologists, and I believe that there are already problems with amateur archaeologists (bottle collectors), the movement towards heritage management, possibly triggered by awareness of native title and transferred to the historical stuff, has perhaps seen some legislation pre-empt some of the problems that you have raised in this and other threads.
Still, the basic requirement is that the people doing the digging are trained properly both in theory and practice- and ethically too. As long as there is somebody out there prepared to do any job as quick as they can, for the lowest price, etc, etc, then any commercial industry is going to end up ****ed. I have seen this in other industries. Thats capitalism for you.
Rant over for now