18th May 2010, 03:22 PM
Errr... Probably best not to try and write something post pub.
I worked for MoLAS, as it was then, for several years and know people who have worked on the public projects they set up. It was done on the site of bombed out houses and loads of schools kids got involved, who didn't mind that it was Victorian [which we normally throw away] as they were learning a lot and having a great time finding 'stuff'. The parents too! Some of them could remember the houses! Of course they could have been lying and been bussed in from Surrey; the accents were very authentic, considering they were mostly 8-9 years old! By the way, it wasn't in the City, it was in the East End mate, awrite!
I was involved in a similar project in Hackney on a similar site and the kids produced some great and original work for their history projects based on primary evidence, as well as an exhibition post project. How many kids have you heard say that history [the past] is boring and irrelevant. Not from those kids.
Lest us not forget that visiting museums is the most popular activity in GB, more than all others put together.
Finally, pre-PPG16 county archaeologists [diggers] were paid employees of the county councils, not just County Archaeologists. They were commercial in that they worked under strict rules and negotiated rates for the job, as now.
Example: Dig Manchester. The biggest community archaeology project in the country so far. Look at the website and see how they did and then take it apart if you can. No one was hurt in the making of this project! No one else lost funds. No one lost a job. Two units, a museum and the city council working together with a great outcome. And I bet we see a report on the outcomes faster than any site report from a commercial dig. In my experience MoLAS made great efforts, and still do, to bring out their reports but mostly even the diggers find it hard to get a copy of past sites they have worked on, unless they go into the archive and find it themselves. Shouldn't they get a copy automatically?
The point about amateurs turning into professionals - I also worked with MSC people who went on to become professional. That indicates that the small percentage who wanted to do so had commitment. The vast majority did not. Its the same now, in that people who want to have some experience of digging will not all want your job. Only a very small percentage will work on a commercial site. The rest will work on special projects funded separately from the commercial [see above]. You can't dig a commercial site with volunteers, obviously, so it will always be special projects that take up the majority of people, and even then it does not have to be 'archaeology' as we know it but like the examples I have given, where they work on modern sites just for the experience and learning opportunities.
If all this has no effect on 'you' why the hostility to any sort of CA? Kevin and I would not have had the chance to be archaeologists if that had been the attitude in the 1970s. Do we take the chance of losing future archaeologists?
I worked for MoLAS, as it was then, for several years and know people who have worked on the public projects they set up. It was done on the site of bombed out houses and loads of schools kids got involved, who didn't mind that it was Victorian [which we normally throw away] as they were learning a lot and having a great time finding 'stuff'. The parents too! Some of them could remember the houses! Of course they could have been lying and been bussed in from Surrey; the accents were very authentic, considering they were mostly 8-9 years old! By the way, it wasn't in the City, it was in the East End mate, awrite!
I was involved in a similar project in Hackney on a similar site and the kids produced some great and original work for their history projects based on primary evidence, as well as an exhibition post project. How many kids have you heard say that history [the past] is boring and irrelevant. Not from those kids.
Lest us not forget that visiting museums is the most popular activity in GB, more than all others put together.
Finally, pre-PPG16 county archaeologists [diggers] were paid employees of the county councils, not just County Archaeologists. They were commercial in that they worked under strict rules and negotiated rates for the job, as now.
Example: Dig Manchester. The biggest community archaeology project in the country so far. Look at the website and see how they did and then take it apart if you can. No one was hurt in the making of this project! No one else lost funds. No one lost a job. Two units, a museum and the city council working together with a great outcome. And I bet we see a report on the outcomes faster than any site report from a commercial dig. In my experience MoLAS made great efforts, and still do, to bring out their reports but mostly even the diggers find it hard to get a copy of past sites they have worked on, unless they go into the archive and find it themselves. Shouldn't they get a copy automatically?
The point about amateurs turning into professionals - I also worked with MSC people who went on to become professional. That indicates that the small percentage who wanted to do so had commitment. The vast majority did not. Its the same now, in that people who want to have some experience of digging will not all want your job. Only a very small percentage will work on a commercial site. The rest will work on special projects funded separately from the commercial [see above]. You can't dig a commercial site with volunteers, obviously, so it will always be special projects that take up the majority of people, and even then it does not have to be 'archaeology' as we know it but like the examples I have given, where they work on modern sites just for the experience and learning opportunities.
If all this has no effect on 'you' why the hostility to any sort of CA? Kevin and I would not have had the chance to be archaeologists if that had been the attitude in the 1970s. Do we take the chance of losing future archaeologists?