30th July 2009, 10:39 AM
Ha, worked for me - but then I'm currently trying to write a conclusion to a paper concerning one of the sites that one of his lumps of flint came from - so that's given me a couple of nice sound bites to bounce off, and also to demonstrate the relevance of the site (well if it's one of the ten that made it on to the plinth then it must be important, must'nt it?) 
Seriously through, once I'd worked out that the dog blanket woman wasn't MP all dolled up for a night out in the smoke I soon tired of watching the whole thing. Trying to deliver an 'engaging' lecture at stupid o'clock, in the dark, with little idea if there is an audience out there, up on a plinth, knowing that the whole archaeological community is ready to "do a bone-kickers" on you if you don't represent them in the way that they think that they should be represented, etc, was one helluva challenge - one that I certainly would have run away from screaming! Thus, I'm not surprised that it wasn't the event of the decade! But given these handicaps I thought that, in the bits that I saw, he did an OK job.
I liked the comment (above) about "putting archaeology on a plinth". Of course, there's trying to get people to engage with archaeology and there's trying to get people to engage with archaeology. One being just telling people what happened in the past and trying to make it relevant to their lives today; the other being trying to get people to engage with the archaeological process - that is, not so much focusing on the past, but rather demonstrating that archaeology can be a creative journey of discovery - something that you can "do" rather than just "look at". MP went for the former, which in my book is a a major challenge as it requires being able to convey a feeling of awe and reverence about the past. The latter, on the other hand, just needs you to tell people how much fun can be had doing archaeology - all the places it takes you, the people you meet, the "adventures" that you can have, and all that comes before you even start to indulge in interpreting the past. I mean, take a book like Pryor's "Sea Henge" - for an archaeology book I think it was an extremely strong seller. I don't think that this was so much because it had better quality 'archaeology' in it (although it was well written), but rather that it told two stories: first the story of the past, and second Pryor's autobiographical story of his life and exploits as an archaeologist. We came for the human interest, we stayed for the archaeology? Well, let's face it, archaeology really has little to do with the past - it's just another way of trying to comprehend the modern worlds around us by bouncing our understandings off of a few scraggy flints and empty holes. :-)
Seriously through, once I'd worked out that the dog blanket woman wasn't MP all dolled up for a night out in the smoke I soon tired of watching the whole thing. Trying to deliver an 'engaging' lecture at stupid o'clock, in the dark, with little idea if there is an audience out there, up on a plinth, knowing that the whole archaeological community is ready to "do a bone-kickers" on you if you don't represent them in the way that they think that they should be represented, etc, was one helluva challenge - one that I certainly would have run away from screaming! Thus, I'm not surprised that it wasn't the event of the decade! But given these handicaps I thought that, in the bits that I saw, he did an OK job.
I liked the comment (above) about "putting archaeology on a plinth". Of course, there's trying to get people to engage with archaeology and there's trying to get people to engage with archaeology. One being just telling people what happened in the past and trying to make it relevant to their lives today; the other being trying to get people to engage with the archaeological process - that is, not so much focusing on the past, but rather demonstrating that archaeology can be a creative journey of discovery - something that you can "do" rather than just "look at". MP went for the former, which in my book is a a major challenge as it requires being able to convey a feeling of awe and reverence about the past. The latter, on the other hand, just needs you to tell people how much fun can be had doing archaeology - all the places it takes you, the people you meet, the "adventures" that you can have, and all that comes before you even start to indulge in interpreting the past. I mean, take a book like Pryor's "Sea Henge" - for an archaeology book I think it was an extremely strong seller. I don't think that this was so much because it had better quality 'archaeology' in it (although it was well written), but rather that it told two stories: first the story of the past, and second Pryor's autobiographical story of his life and exploits as an archaeologist. We came for the human interest, we stayed for the archaeology? Well, let's face it, archaeology really has little to do with the past - it's just another way of trying to comprehend the modern worlds around us by bouncing our understandings off of a few scraggy flints and empty holes. :-)