30th June 2013, 09:12 PM
I can see that the problem with allowing 'equivalence' is that curators would then spend a lot of time arguing whether a professor or long-term amateur or classicit counted as equivalent. The IfA and the RP scheme are well established by now and I sincerely don't understand how a comemrcial arcaheological with any prententions to professionalism would fail to join - the only arguments I've seen boil down to: it costs money, some people were or are involved who I don't like, it has failed to police its members effectively, it has policed its members too harshly, or I'm a brilliant archaeologist and shouldn't have to prove myself to anybody.