3rd May 2012, 10:34 AM
(This post was last modified: 3rd May 2012, 11:30 AM by kevin wooldridge.)
trowelfodder Wrote:Is it just me who sees that there is glaring problem with this.....
No...I too share many of your reservations.
There is a general consensus in all walks of life that those who choose to deplete or destroy irreplaceable resources should pay not only the costs of their trade but also some measure to recompence society. In general terms this is called polluter pays. In archaeology you can replace 'polluter' with client/developer or whatever term you choose to use. The fact that there is a crisis in funding in archaeology (has been in the past as well) is clearly because the polluter in our industry is failing to pay adequately. And this it has to be said is largely the fault of our 'self-regulating' industry in allowing the polluter to get away with not paying the full price for beiong allowed to exploit the resource.
The answer is therefore not to try and cover our error by substituting volunteers for paid workers, but to insist that the polluter pays the full and ongoing price for the service. In the case of GGAT, if a polluter or a polluters agents (commercial archaeologists) need access to a resource to allow their planning permission to go through they should pay the full price and that means the price of a fully funded HER service including updating the database when necessary.
In reply to Serpentine I am not sure that there is an obligation on a trust to involve volunteers in its outreach and eduacational ends, merely that it is obliged to pursue outreach and educational ends. If it chooses to involve volunteers that is one strand, it could as easily promote the engagement of professionally qualified and well paid mentors as well!!
In an 'ideal world' (to quote Wax) archaeological trusts should be pursuing a campaign to ensure that all of its activities are properly resourced and funded. Its seems to me disingenuous to 'employ' volunteers, if at the same time you are not making a hell of a noise about why this is necessary, when currently we live in a nation of 3 million unemployed and more specifically a profession where new graduate employment benefits only the very very few....
Charity and benevolence are for the likes of the Salvation Army, not professional archaeologists
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...