26th May 2010, 11:15 AM
Slightly distressed by how this discussion has turned into a tit for tat round of slagging after what seemed like some reasonably valid points at the beginning, but it seemed to have been driven off a cliff some time ago partly by Herr Unit (although if you will rise to his perverse posts then what do you expect?) However, it does now seem to be largely dominated by the 'community archaeology is great and anyone who questions it is clearly evil' side of the argument! There would seem to be some element of vested interests coming into play on both sides and it is difficult for those not directly involved in CA to come up with valid critical points from the outside. Commercial archaeologists can't win - sneered at by academics for not being research orientated enough and producing results that are not 'easily accessible' and criticised by CAs for not engaging with the public enough and producing more smiley faces.