+- BAJR Federation Archaeology (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk)
+-- Forum: BAJR Federation Forums (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: The Site Hut (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?fid=7)
+--- Thread: Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? (/showthread.php?tid=852)
Pages:
1
2
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - Steven - 4th March 2008
Unitod1 said:
One of the problems of the Palaeolithic, the archaeology is normally in the ?natural? and ignored by most curators and commercial archaeology
Hi
Your right! if we conveniently ignore all the hundreds of thousands of pounds of agg levy money being spent on this period, and the interventions which take place on appropriate developments on gravel terraces, marine/estuarine areas, and the conditions placed on hardrock/gravel quarries with caves and other archaeo/palaentological natural phenomenon which involve geologist/palaeontologists as well as archaeologists.
It seems that you have one point of view that you are the only person who understands archaeology, perhaps you should pause your messianic complex sometimes. One tip, lower your caffeine levels and up your B12.
Oh by the way, must of us indulged in our hut whinging at lunch time, and got on with excavating the threatened sites the rest of the time. There is a time for everything!
Steven
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - Unitof1 - 4th March 2008
Are you saying that if the messiah had cut down on the coffee and cured his pernicious anaemia there would be a lot more strife and war in the world?
I would agree that I have one point of view. I cant say that I understand curation or what its got to do with archaeology as for the agg levy...sorry I need more coffee
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - Unitof1 - 4th March 2008
stoneyciclewoman got us here and I think that she got into archaeology because she was interested in archaeology and is now starting the slight re-alteration that could quite possibly make her consider becoming a dc as the only way out. And I think that archaeology is an interest in archaeology and that?s about is sum worth- real navel gawking stuff. But what we have is archaeology is for and owned by the state and this has come to be pervasive and something that requires monitoring and control, basically restrictions with carrots and sticks and exclusions, disciplinaries and confidentialities- state secrets even and don?t worry everythings ok even if the whole bloody maps painted red. I think what we have unfairly diminishes the ownership of archaeology that is for the individual (including the landowner) and I pity the state that tries to honour or distance its self from subjects such as oppression, war and slavery or skewers the record by emphasising the banal which is something that the metal detectorists are pointing out in this forum. Or don?t you want me to think about these things- as some, how-funded, self-appointed, government within a government like algao will sort it out for me.
what I am trying to say is that curators should spend all their time recommending conditions and drop specification of works requirements and all other things still needing approval as a waste of time and tax payers money.
basically eating the raw bean
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - BAJR Host - 4th March 2008
its a thought... he is a naughty boy though
"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - Steven - 4th March 2008
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Unitof1
stoneyciclewoman got us here and I think that she got into archaeology because she was interested in archaeology and is now starting the slight re-alteration that could quite possibly make her consider becoming a dc as the only way out. And I think that archaeology is an interest in archaeology and that?s about is sum worth- real navel gawking stuff. But what we have is archaeology is for and owned by the state and this has come to be pervasive and something that requires monitoring and control, basically restrictions with carrots and sticks and exclusions, disciplinaries and confidentialities- state secrets even and don?t worry everythings ok even if the whole bloody maps painted red. I think what we have unfairly diminishes the ownership of archaeology that is for the individual (including the landowner) and I pity the state that tries to honour or distance its self from subjects such as oppression, war and slavery or skewers the record by emphasising the banal which is something that the metal detectorists are pointing out in this forum. Or don?t you want me to think about these things- as some, how-funded, self-appointed, government within a government like algao will sort it out for me.
what I am trying to say is that curators should spend all their time recommending conditions and drop specification of works requirements and all other things still needing approval as a waste of time and tax payers money.
basically eating the raw bean
Hi
This is very confused stuff isn't it? You think that although landowners who farm are the biggest threat to archaeology but that already state control is diminishing individual ownership. You think that developers should just ignore conditions because compared to farming development is a lesser threat. At the same time you want to erode standards by not having any regulatory mechanism for assessing a contractors work but only have curators advising on planning conditions.
Archaeology isn't "owned by the state" but as archaeologists we have a duty of care to ensure that future people either can still appreciate monuments etc or at least have a record. Who else but public bodies can act on behalf of society as a whole? That is what we elect governments for.
No one is trying to stop you thinking about anything but I haven't read anything from you that is constructive or has any solutions. Its easy to snipe from the sidelines about how us curators don't do anything, because your not the one trying really hard to ensure archaeology remains within the new planning framework, being drowned in LDF consultation documents, getting used to the new ES scheme as well as carrying on the "normal" day job of assessing over 2000 planning applications a year , 400 utilities schemes, 4 DTI schemes, arguing with developers, reading archaeology reports, and of course getting slagged of by those field archaeologists who carry out bad practice for not understanding archaeology, who then submit un-acceptable reports which understate the archaeology.
Get real! We stop dealing with planning policy as well as DC there ain't no more archaeology! You and all of us are unemployed and the archaeological record is defined by accidental out of context finds. If curators stop checking quality then only the cheapest (and therefore most likely the worst) units survive.
Steven
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - Unitof1 - 5th March 2008
Hi
Archaeology is in state control, they are the editors/enforcers and it is the states official history, all nicely standardised by your good selves, and its mostly happy and clappy and grey and faceless through a guidance note for the TCPA amended.
Landowners in particular don?t want archaeology on their land as it gives the state potential control over their resources and having been reared on subsidies they are secretive even within their own communities. That they have been given maps based on the NMP shaded pink to show the areas of crop marks on their fields (which they thought they had cleared of all encumbrances in their heroic effects to feed the nation) to denote heritage points for the ES scheme will come to be seen as the single biggest country wide act of vandalism ever perpetrated against archaeology. I cant think of anything that could compete with it. I think that state archaeologists should be kept away from them for about fifty years and then we should go and see if they have forgiven archaeology for letting the state take control.
Cropmarks came to the surface as a result of the active agricultural erosion of these sites mapped mostly since the second world war and that some archaeologists made a business of imagining that the archaeology was still there is akin to ecologists plotting the position of dead fish floating on a poisoned pond and pretending that indicated the location of a living population and ignoring the exponential increase of the poison -something that the metal detectorists have not done and their multiplication is probably the best charted as an affect of the catastrophic erosion. Maybe we should follow suit?Water Newton every field..
In the rural area that I operate the significance of the archaeology affected by development is minor compared to that effected by agriculture and even the forces of nature (I refer you to not that report again). I think that development is being unfairly used by the state in this environment or rather the state is burying its head behind development. I think to have a jaundiced archaeologist stand around on a watching brief on a 600mm wide footings for an extension because it happens to be in the curtilage of a medieval village when the other side of the hedge subsoiling is being done on a hundred acre field is patently disproportionate. My incoherence commences when I try to measure that proportion.
You said
Quote:quote:
Archaeology isn't "owned by the state" but as archaeologists we have a duty of care to ensure that future people either can still appreciate monuments etc or at least have a record. Who else but public bodies can act on behalf of society as a whole? That is what we elect governments for.
(I refer you to not that report again).I think that future generations will be incredulous that archaeologists did not try to grab any of it in any way before it went and will be grateful for the activity of the metal detectorists. Who knows what they will think about archaeologists staring a soil in boxes at Cranfield.
You said
Quote:quote:
At the same time you want to erode standards by not having any regulatory mechanism for assessing a contractors work but only have curators advising on planning conditions.
I think the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable. I mainly see regulatory mechanisms as restrictive and inadequate in this environment.
You said
Quote:quote:
No one is trying to stop you thinking about anything but I haven't read anything from you that is constructive or has any solutions. Its easy to snipe from the sidelines about how us curators don't do anything, because your not the one trying really hard to ensure archaeology remains within the new planning framework, being drowned in LDF consultation documents, getting used to the new ES scheme as well as carrying on the "normal" day job of assessing over 2000 planning applications a year , 400 utilities schemes, 4 DTI schemes, arguing with developers, reading archaeology reports, and of course getting slagged of by those field archaeologists who carry out bad practice for not understanding archaeology, who then submit un-acceptable reports which understate the archaeology.
So you need to cut some of it out. Make a consideration of archaeology the default on the 2000 planning applications and charge with profit the DTI and the utilities for all of your time spent on their schemes and dont read the archaeology reports.
You said
Quote:quote:
Get real! We stop dealing with planning policy as well as DC there ain't no more archaeology! You and all of us are unemployed and the archaeological record is defined by accidental out of context finds. If curators stop checking quality then only the cheapest (and therefore most likely the worst) units survive.
Pretty drastic way to get rid of me but it could work. The thing about quality is that it is related to quantity.
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - Steven - 5th March 2008
Hi,
You say:
"I think that development is being unfairly used by the state in this environment or rather the state is burying its head behind development"
So in other words because farmers cause more damage than developers (who are building for profit) the latter should not have to pay for their impact on archaeology.
You say:
"I think that state archaeologists should be kept away from them for about fifty years and then we should go and see if they have forgiven archaeology for letting the state take control."
hate to tell you this but it is Natural England who designed the scheme not archaeologists, even so schemes can require that fields are placed under restrictive uses because of archaeology.
You say:
"Cropmarks came to the surface as a result of the active agricultural erosion of these sites mapped mostly since the second world war and that some archaeologists made a business of imagining that the archaeology was still there is akin to ecologists plotting the position of dead fish floating on a poisoned pond and pretending that indicated the location of a living population and ignoring the exponential increase of the poison -something that the metal detectorists have not done and their multiplication is probably the best charted as an affect of the catastrophic erosion. Maybe we should follow suit?Water Newton every field.."
Which makes no sense in terms of archaeological methodology and only reveals your lack of knowledge concerning site assessment and appraisal. Of course archaeologists are aware of taphonomy (site formation processes) and indeed basic recoding and interpretation tries to address those issues. Site assessment presumes that the known only represents a sample and we are well aware of the limitations of the data set.
What you have done here is made an incorrect analogy by making up circumstances that do not exist.
You said:
I think that future generations will be incredulous that archaeologists did not try to grab any of it in any way before it went and will be grateful for the activity of the metal detectorists.
I would agree if metal detectorist recorded their finds with as detailed a location as possible (at least into ten meter grids) and then published the material and placed it on the HER and donated all finds to local museum. However, that is not the norm with even the PAS statistics showing that not to be the case.
You said:
"So you need to cut some of it out. Make a consideration of archaeology the default on the 2000 planning applications and charge with profit the DTI and the utilities for all of your time spent on their schemes and don't read the archaeology reports."
Again showing your ignorance of the reality, you can't put a condition of planning permission that isn't integral to granting that permission. Also it is planning authorities which control planning not archaeological curators we advise, and if all we did was advise that every application was conditioned the authority would refuse to accept the advise, applicants would complain to the ombudsman and central government would lower the funding to the LPA. We already charge the DTI, utilities don't have to pay its that negotiation skill us curators apply that you are so happy and quick to dismiss.
As for not reading the reports, I don't think I even need to respond to such a half-baked comment.
You said
" think the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable. I mainly see regulatory mechanisms as restrictive and inadequate in this environment."
Are you perhaps George Bush or one of his administration? you see only private business or some other non-public body as the solution? Yes isn't it terrible when local government curators make developers excavate medieval cemeteries before the JCB's tear them up, if I was king I'd make sure that a few quick sweeps with a metal detector were all that archaeologists were allowed to do.
Also lets apply you idea to natural environment, I know there aren't many tigers left so instead of learning about their environment and behaviour through systematic study, no, lets just shoot them and keep their skins after all the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable
Steven
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - Unitof1 - 5th March 2008
I must admit that I hadn?t thought my cunning plan through and that you and I would be out of a job although I must admit I have less to lose as I don?t have a pension. It must be a thankless task being a curator. I could think up a few more ways to make more work for you if you like but presumably you have to be suspicious about any archaeologists being nice to you as they could be just trying to cover up their cowboy practises.
I do quite like my poisoned pond though and I think that is totally taphimonic and shooting the tiger thing isn?t as good a parable as mine.
I would prefer comparisons to Margate Thatcher as I used to get that a lot back in the eighties and nineties. Personally I think that she should have given the council houses away. Why, why, why, did she come up with selling them, it means we have still got hundreds of them left. We could have got rid of the whole system over night. It would have put half the council out of work (there I go again) Bloody left and right-well centre- in this country has a perpetual fascination with being medieval landlords and doffing their caps to the landowners.
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - m300572 - 7th March 2008
Steven "hate to tell you this but it is Natural England who designed the scheme not archaeologists, even so schemes can require that fields are placed under restrictive uses because of archaeology."
The archaeological options within Environmental Stewardship were formulated by a combination of the archaeologists working for the Rural Development Service (one of Natural England's founding bodies), English Heritage and the ALGAO. Natural England employs a team of archaeologists within the organisation.
Sorry to distract you from Unitof1's ranting!
Too much coffee for one man, or unit perhaps? - Sparky - 7th March 2008
Ahhh...ALGAO...you'll start him off again...
UO1,
I don't think DCOs have the leverage to persuade local cowboy units from working in their patch as judging from the endless complaints, it still occurs.
Nice to see you using the context of taphonomy in it correct biological context rather than a metaphor for site formation processes.
S