19th May 2010, 09:46 AM
kevin wooldridge Wrote:Not quite sure what time period 'post-New Labour' refers to - some date since the 6th May.....
....It is becoming increasingly clear to me that all undergraduate students of archaeology should be compelled to sit a course on the 'History of Archaeological Practice' - some of the misconceptions spouted on BAJR sometimes make me think that it is a sorely understudied subject.
For the matter of record. The use of non-professionals in UK archaeology dates back to the 19th century and possibly earlier. I wont go into too many details here but would mention General Lane-Fox and the agricultural labourers of Cranborne Chase, later Basil Brown at Sutton Hoo, later still Professor Grimes and the London Excavation Committee, later still the Manpower Services Commission and similar schemes....all have produced competent, principled and as far as I am concerned totally 'professional' archaeologists...from non-graduated, community based archaeological employment schemes. Some of whom (myself and David Connolly for example) are still alive and kicking close on 30 years after getting our break.....probably one which without community based archaeology we would never have got a sniff of the creosote let alone a foot in the door..... I kind of find it a little offensive that I at least would be one of those folk whom Jack would hate to see 'getting their mitts on sensitive and importantarchaeological remains'.....what would make me less worthy than an undergraduate with no field experience?
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It's OK, you don't need to lecture to me about the development of archaeological practice, I have a reasonable idea.
I think the modern concept of 'community archaeology' is what's potentially problematic and the manner in which funding is available. Once apon a time, not too long ago, local 'amateur' groups and individuals might organise research projects off their own backs, perhaps funded by themselves or with small grants from suitable bodies. They were genuninely interested in archaeology and of course the results of their work ranged from excellent, to poor, to never seen again. Such work is still undertaken.
With the advent of HLF and similar funding projects have begun to spring up in order to take advantage of the funding, not necessarily because people were already interested in the first place. This is not necessarily a problem, and again can produce some good results, but the emphasis is now on 'community' with archaeology sometimes just forming a vehicle for it to be engaged with. Again, this is not a problem, except of course that archaeology is a finite and delicate resource, and as commercial archaeologists as Jack said, there is a constant presumption to leave it preserved in situ.
My original point about what's frustrating about the situation is the relative lack of money available for training in professional archaeology compared to 'community projects'. The two things aren't really connected, community archaeology isn't taking professional jobs (although I did read on one local society website about them carrying out a 'watching brief' in advance of some pipeline or similar - cheers), although the local community is perhaps more likely to want to take ownership of the archaeology than the professionals, for whom it is just a job, which might present obstacles. The potential risk, as I said before, is further undermining what professionals have been trying to achieve over the last 20 years or so by giving the idea that anyone can do this archaeology lark (and before you say that isn't what's happening that is certainly the impression I got from some volunteers one one project I heard about, who couldn't wait for the professionals to leave them to it and stop hovering over them once they had had a few weeks practice). There is sometimes a sense of us having to constantly hand over part of what we have worked to become because people are interested, as if we don't even own our own profession. I half expect people with shovels to turn up on every site on the understanding that it is all a bit of a free for all. Harking back to MSC projects and earlier doesn't really help because that isn't the situation we are now in, as someone else said, aren't we aiming for something better (although you'll have to excuse my ignorance of that period, it wasn't covered in my undergraduate 'History of Archaeological Practice' sessions).