19th March 2011, 12:07 PM
Quote:I know its not that easy but we can’t fall for that simplistic utilitarian ranking approach, its designed to divide and conquer and I suspect we will be getting a lot of that across the board soon.
Unfortunately this is exactly how "ordinary" people like my parents think. They DO compare archaeology with lollipop ladies. There's no point saying they shouldn't - they do, and we have to try and find a way to address that approach. To do otherwise is like sitting on the deck of the Titanic, pointing out that it really shouldn't have hit an iceberg in the first place.
Everyone here *feels* how important archaeology is, even if we seem unable to come up with a way of expressing this coherently to people with only a passing occasional interest in archaeology.
Quote:Why is archaeology important and why should "I" care?
Quote:I suspect that justifying ourselves is much harder than anybody is willing to admit.
Quote:If we cannot define what makes archaeology important even amongst our selves how can we expect the public to give it a second thought
Quote:shouldn't we, rather than defining archaeology, be making the case for how maintaining archaeology spending can be justified in light of cuts to social services or defence or hospitals or schools or libraries or universities etc etc or at least how an effective balance can be achieved....?Yes, yes, yes and yes.
Quote:It is away of understanding our direct physical environment, it enables us to read the evidence encapsulated in that environment and tell the stories of the people who created it.Due to see the rents tomorrow. Will try the communal history/storyteller angle on them and report back.
Without archaeology that environment is thoughtlessly destroyed and the complex evidence it contains is lost and with it the stories it holds.
The job of all archaeologists is to tell those stories
We have no other purpose and stories are what makes us human