26th September 2010, 05:00 PM
Peter talks of a 'massive injection of funding to archaeology, say ?100 million a year' but what does this really mean? 'Archaeology' is getting ?100 million? You reckon? I come from a publicly-funded museum background and I don't think we ever saw any of that ?100 million. In fact, because the units wanted to offload their gear onto us as quickly as possible, there was a public subsidy going towards them to help store the stuff in perpetuity. No. Rather I would rephrase Peter's line to say that there has been a massive injection of funding to the consultants and units whose business it is to do archaeology on development sites. Yes, they are part of our discipline, they are benefiting but it does not follow that all our discipline benefits from this massive injection. That we are learning more - yes, that cannot be disputed, but the reality of the everyday management of heritage resources etc. requires a rather better spread of the this injection than exists these days.
But its not going to happen, is it [waits for dino to tell me to stop being so idealistic :-)]
But its not going to happen, is it [waits for dino to tell me to stop being so idealistic :-)]