17th November 2013, 06:52 PM
Tool Wrote:So, the industry needs to be more engaging, yet being a commercial enterprise is not going to be keen to spend scant resources (or to put it another way, the client isn't going to want to pay extra) on doing so. How do we square that circle?Persuade the client that engagement is value for money (excellent publicity) and archaeology need not be done behind closed doors. Difficult when archaeology is an after thought to the construction process rather than built in from the very start. Not impossible though and there are many ways of doing it.
There are now several large developers who have funded booklets on various aspects of the archaeology of Manchester that have been revealed by commercial excavation. This was driven by a curator who could see beyond fulfilling planning conditions and developers who grasped the idea of the positive publicity they generate.