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29th April 2009, 08:19 PM
Well said Old Girl.
Yes sites are dug faster now yes they get written up why because commercial archaeology is a good thing. The standard of staff have improved a great deal in many respects. We also have the correct resources it is simply wrong to say time and money have to be negioated they dont - they are bid for. Now back to the topic myself included.
The indicators are that things are going to get worse. The BAJR survey should be out shortly. The IFA/Fame survey is biased towards the traditional large organisations not the entire spectrum and it will be interesting to see what is happening to the smaller companies on mass.
Peter
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30th April 2009, 01:14 PM
I have been wondering whether the 'dead cat bounce' is (I am about to mix metaphors horribly here) being hooked up on a bit of a bungee due to the change to three year consents which are now forcing developers to implement schemes and deal with pre-commencement conditions.
The planning lists I cover are now at 2/3s the length they were at the height of the boom or in some cases longer(this week 4/5); last year they had fallen to approximately 1/3 in length. This has been pretty consistent since the beginning of Feb.
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Just to let you all know... I did an interview (along with a Digger.. Chris) with BBC Radio4 following on from what was said last time.
I know it is going to get edited, but the gist of what I said was that archaeology is a skilled profession that is a vocation.. here are my notes:
Field staff are the first and only chance to gather information? they are highly skilled .......
that there is a squeeze in pay and contract length that can't be helped.. but a small cut on small pay is not good... that there is no one quick fix but getting the public involved is a way forward, Now there is no quick fix, there is no one answer, however one positive move that I am pursuing is engaging the public more in public archaeology? which can range from projects such as I am involved in Scotland, working with communities directly.. and the excellent pilot project by Archaeology Scotland which is taking archaeology into Schools? or, and this is important for commercial archaeology, opening up to the public and involving them in active sites? a great example of this - and they are happening already.. is at York, the Archaeology Live project at Hungate.. archaeology as a community activity, brings the public into the process which means support for archaeologists.. there are so many skills that archaeologists have?
There is great public interest and willingness to get involved.. and this should be encouraged more... and aided - with govt funds... it does not solve everything... but is a core element ... as we have to remember who we do it for.. and have to skill share. blah blah...
Development is a key element that needs some serious open debate.. what we need who does it, the benefits, the reasons that developers should fund, the parameters of this duty... etc... but with no serious development then its a moot point just now.
<Apologies for the notes... but you can probably make sense of what I said... and I talked as me... not as a representative of anything.. before you panic!)
Tuesday 3pm... cross fingers.
"Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage."
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Have only just managed to listen again to the BBC Radio piece and feel a bit aggrieved, belittled and worthless as a result. Before anyone says this element is going off topic a little allow me to explain why I don't feel it is.
This is at least the second time that the glaring differences between how 'academic' and 'commercial' archaeologists work has come up (the other that I can think of is the Britarch article 'A professional mockery'). In both cases the commercial archaeologists have been criticised on a number of points by the academic, some of which are completely ignorant of the way the system works e.g. we are in the pocket of the developer (like curators and standards don't exist), we aren't processing the information in the right way or are in some way not experienced enough, and that the results are not publically accessible (OASIS website anyone, HER/SMR? Have they heard of these things? What about the hundreds of books and articles that are published? How is a grey literature report any less accessible than an article in a monograph costing ?150 and only available in a few university libraries). There were also other elements that came across as simply jealous - the idea of a developer tax seemed to be being pitched as a way of funding academic careers.
Anyway, straying from my point slightly, what would help the prospects of thousands of archaeologists in these difficult times immensely is a little support from our academic colleagues. Are any of them going to stand up and state how good and worthwhile the PPG system is, how much new information it has produced. It's not perfect by any means but Dr Hamilakis' comment that the archaeology is destroyed as part of the development did make me think, 'well duh!' But would anyone look at it if the planning guidance didn't exist? Many sites, in areas were there was thought to be little potential but where remains were found in evaluation would just be destroyed full stop. I can think of any number of areas in the region I work where the advances made through purely academic archaeological work are virtually nil, because work in advance of development is looking in areas they would be unlikely to touch such as urban areas.
In general though, what would help with preserving jobs and making the system stronger and more effective is more wide-spread support, understanding and information. If developers have never had to deal with it before and heard comments like those from 'an archaeologist' they might wonder why we bother. It would greatly benefit commercial archaeologists if the work they do was, in effect, entirely normalised in society.
It is difficult to cling onto your job if you can't justify to anyone why you do it.
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I really think we are being unfair here.
I don't think this is an attack on what makes the world go round.
Yanis seems to be tackling the concept of strategic planning to development
but that would require archaeological theoretical engagement with the planning process at local government level.
The only issue I see in this notion is the practicalities of theoretical engagement on practice, given that our sources of funding are not borne from sequential information gathering for an educationally minded ear.
the ar4ea he refers to would be the local governments involvement on merging development with the educational syllabus of the schooling system.
Where we begin to fall at this idea is that you need to have a real understanding to the principles of nationalism and even the fascists possibilities of educating towards too narrow an area and population.
Its dangerous territory for high intellectualism, where university lecturers are not teaching at a local level to children.
To be honest though I think that is the idea.
That is rather than the inference of taxation for real research.
We really must think about this from their perspective as much as our own.
We are skilled, they say we are skilled.
The situation is that they dialogues are on different paralllels.
txt is
Mike
Austin Ainsworth
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YP, that may have been a very interesting astute comment, unfortunately I couldn't understand a single word of it. Could you perhaps translate it into English?
You lost me somewhere between local government and fascism. If you can't make your posts less obscure than your last one I'll start deleting them as completely irrelevant and off-topic.
![[Image: visigoth.jpg]](http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg189/boltonsquanderer/visigoth.jpg)
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I always chuckle at the though of reading Yellow Pete's context sheets....
....attempting to control and dominate british archaeology since 1984...
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Mr Yellow..
I realise (and in this respect you are a bit like me) you write what your mind thinks, but would it be possible to write it, then rewrite to make it more useable. I do see what you are trying to see, but it is a bit hard, and would benefit others if it could be less - mind to mouth.. no offence by the way, just a comment.
"Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage."
Niccolo Machiavelli
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This would be a very dull discussion board indeed if everyone (myself included) thought long and hard about what they were writing.:face-huh:
AUP aside I'd like to see more ill though out opinions passionately aired.:face-approve:
Austin Ainsworth
Unregistered
Quote:quote:Originally posted by mercenary
This would be a very dull discussion board indeed if everyone (myself included) thought long and hard about what they were writing.:face-huh:
AUP aside I'd like to see more ill though out opinions passionately aired.:face-approve:
Ill thought out opinions I can deal with, I have enough of my own - what I'd like to read on the forum are opinions that don't require the reader to have an advanced degree in existential philosophy in order to decipher them.
