CBA Community Archaeology Report

[Dinosaur]

.....Secondly I recommend anyone who believes that the IfA was set up to benefit solely commercial archaeologists to refer to the signatarees to the first articles of Association of the IfA. The 19 names include the then head of the CBA, several county archaeologists, a whole lot of academics....but I don't see the name of a single commercial archaeologist.....

Would be slightly surprising if the few despised commercial archaeologists in the dim and distant pre-PPG16 days had appeared! - the county archaeologists in those days represented pretty much all of the digging forces....

[Comarch]

Errr... Probably best not to try and write something post pub.
I worked for MoLAS, as it was then, for several years and know people who have worked on the public projects they set up. It was done on the site of bombed out houses and loads of schools kids got involved, who didn't mind that it was Victorian [which we normally throw away] as they were learning a lot and having a great time finding 'stuff'. The parents too! Some of them could remember the houses! Of course they could have been lying and been bussed in from Surrey; the accents were very authentic, considering they were mostly 8-9 years old! By the way, it wasn't in the City, it was in the East End mate, awrite!
I was involved in a similar project in Hackney on a similar site and the kids produced some great and original work for their history projects based on primary evidence, as well as an exhibition post project. How many kids have you heard say that history [the past] is boring and irrelevant. Not from those kids.
Lest us not forget that visiting museums is the most popular activity in GB, more than all others put together.
Finally, pre-PPG16 county archaeologists [diggers] were paid employees of the county councils, not just County Archaeologists. They were commercial in that they worked under strict rules and negotiated rates for the job, as now.
Example: Dig Manchester. The biggest community archaeology project in the country so far. Look at the website and see how they did and then take it apart if you can. No one was hurt in the making of this project! No one else lost funds. No one lost a job. Two units, a museum and the city council working together with a great outcome. And I bet we see a report on the outcomes faster than any site report from a commercial dig. In my experience MoLAS made great efforts, and still do, to bring out their reports but mostly even the diggers find it hard to get a copy of past sites they have worked on, unless they go into the archive and find it themselves. Shouldn't they get a copy automatically?
The point about amateurs turning into professionals - I also worked with MSC people who went on to become professional. That indicates that the small percentage who wanted to do so had commitment. The vast majority did not. Its the same now, in that people who want to have some experience of digging will not all want your job. Only a very small percentage will work on a commercial site. The rest will work on special projects funded separately from the commercial [see above]. You can't dig a commercial site with volunteers, obviously, so it will always be special projects that take up the majority of people, and even then it does not have to be 'archaeology' as we know it but like the examples I have given, where they work on modern sites just for the experience and learning opportunities.
If all this has no effect on 'you' why the hostility to any sort of CA? Kevin and I would not have had the chance to be archaeologists if that had been the attitude in the 1970s. Do we take the chance of losing future archaeologists?

[RedEarth]

Not quite sure what time period 'post-New Labour' refers to - some date since the 6th May.....

....It is becoming increasingly clear to me that all undergraduate students of archaeology should be compelled to sit a course on the 'History of Archaeological Practice' - some of the misconceptions spouted on BAJR sometimes make me think that it is a sorely understudied subject.

For the matter of record. The use of non-professionals in UK archaeology dates back to the 19th century and possibly earlier. I wont go into too many details here but would mention General Lane-Fox and the agricultural labourers of Cranborne Chase, later Basil Brown at Sutton Hoo, later still Professor Grimes and the London Excavation Committee, later still the Manpower Services Commission and similar schemes....all have produced competent, principled and as far as I am concerned totally 'professional' archaeologists...from non-graduated, community based archaeological employment schemes. Some of whom (myself and David Connolly for example) are still alive and kicking close on 30 years after getting our break.....probably one which without community based archaeology we would never have got a sniff of the creosote let alone a foot in the door..... I kind of find it a little offensive that I at least would be one of those folk whom Jack would hate to see 'getting their mitts on sensitive and importantarchaeological remains'.....what would make me less worthy than an undergraduate with no field experience?

[/URL]

It's OK, you don't need to lecture to me about the development of archaeological practice, I have a reasonable idea.

I think the modern concept of 'community archaeology' is what's potentially problematic and the manner in which funding is available. Once apon a time, not too long ago, local 'amateur' groups and individuals might organise research projects off their own backs, perhaps funded by themselves or with small grants from suitable bodies. They were genuninely interested in archaeology and of course the results of their work ranged from excellent, to poor, to never seen again. Such work is still undertaken.

With the advent of HLF and similar funding projects have begun to spring up in order to take advantage of the funding, not necessarily because people were already interested in the first place. This is not necessarily a problem, and again can produce some good results, but the emphasis is now on 'community' with archaeology sometimes just forming a vehicle for it to be engaged with. Again, this is not a problem, except of course that archaeology is a finite and delicate resource, and as commercial archaeologists as Jack said, there is a constant presumption to leave it preserved in situ.

My original point about what's frustrating about the situation is the relative lack of money available for training in professional archaeology compared to 'community projects'. The two things aren't really connected, community archaeology isn't taking professional jobs (although I did read on one local society website about them carrying out a 'watching brief' in advance of some pipeline or similar - cheers), although the local community is perhaps more likely to want to take ownership of the archaeology than the professionals, for whom it is just a job, which might present obstacles. The potential risk, as I said before, is further undermining what professionals have been trying to achieve over the last 20 years or so by giving the idea that anyone can do this archaeology lark (and before you say that isn't what's happening that is certainly the impression I got from some volunteers one one project I heard about, who couldn't wait for the professionals to leave them to it and stop hovering over them once they had had a few weeks practice). There is sometimes a sense of us having to constantly hand over part of what we have worked to become because people are interested, as if we don't even own our own profession. I half expect people with shovels to turn up on every site on the understanding that it is all a bit of a free for all. Harking back to MSC projects and earlier doesn't really help because that isn't the situation we are now in, as someone else said, aren't we aiming for something better (although you'll have to excuse my ignorance of that period, it wasn't covered in my undergraduate 'History of Archaeological Practice' sessions).

[Dinosaur]

I'm reasonably certain I can remember cases in the past where Local Societies etc have, in fact, undertaken what would conventionally be regarded in this day and age as 'commercial' jobs - in fact any right-minded developer with a plot of land likely to contain archaeology and in no particular hurry to develop (all those land-bank sites that Tesco and co sit on, for starters) wouldn't be going far wrong in approaching any local societies to see if they can get all the archaeology out of the way in advance of any planning process for free/peanuts (or Unitof1's plan B, bulldoze it). Wouldn't that potentially have a significant effect upon the commercial archaeology sector? :face-stir:

[Comarch]

A Chicken & Egg question = which came first, the funding or the interest? Come on! "Oh look. Some money. I've never had any interest in archaeology before, lets go dig some holes". Could anyone please give me an example where a community project took funds from a commercial job. Do you really believe that if all community archaeology stopped tomorrow that there would be a shed load of money put into training professionals? Why is it a fact that 15-20 years ago, when Community Archaeology did not exist as a concept, that a structured training program was never seen outside university (10 days at UCL! Big deal).
I will say this again - training professionals and letting people learn how archaeology is done are two clear separate things. We are all angry about the lack of investment in the workforce, so join a union or the Diggers Forum or spark a revolution and do something about it. CA is not the enemy. I'm not sure anyone is but if you want a professional structure in archaeology which parallels other professions we are all going to have to look at how we want archaeology to change in the future.
Preservation in situ - fine. But are we then to ban all research? Is it all going to be rescue from now on? Also most CA projects are non-intrusive. Digging - CA sites do not have to be done on sensitive archaeology. As I said, a lot can be learned from modern sites - its how to dig not what you dig for most people. If they are on a site with, say, Roman archaeology this has probably been run for years by a group of professionals as a distinct project. All this is so small as to be a pimple on the body of archaeology.
Hands up all those who have been uneasy on a site that has been rushed through... Be honest! I have seen some really dodgy stuff in my time.
Do you know anyone who thinks archaeology is "just a job"? Go and work somewhere else.
Ownership again. Why not? It was said earlier that units want to get rid of artifacts because they don't want the cost of storage, and send it back to local museums. "we dug it up now its your problem - we don't own it". You can't have it both ways. And yes, anyone should be able to 'do' archaeology. But they can't do commercial archaeology because it is done in particular circumstances - they can't come on a site as it would be trespass. In the past MSC people went on to do commercial archaeology and you have probably worked with them. So what? 99.9% did not. Only professional archaeologists can do a professional job in commercial archaeology, so don't worry, your safe.
Archaeology is not a masonic, secret society, with secret rituals and esoteric knowledge. I see this attitude as a result of archaeology being a young profession. It has little confidence in its own image as a job. You will not be asked to "hand over" your identity. You own your skills, you own your right to do a professional job, and nothing can take that away from you.

[Dinosaur]

....In the past MSC people went on to do commercial archaeology....

Eeerm...in what way were most MSC jobs not commercial? Seem to recall all but one of the ones I supervised being entirely in advance of big commercial developments (multi-million pound developments in most cases), and being run by and partly staffed by your 'commercial' county units who I'm sure/know did very well out of them (eg subsequently getting all the contracts to write them up, a number of big projects from those days seem to be getting published 20+ years after the last MSC people had any involvement) :face-stir:

[Sith]

I'm reasonably certain I can remember cases in the past where Local Societies etc have, in fact, undertaken what would conventionally be regarded in this day and age as 'commercial' jobs - in fact any right-minded developer with a plot of land likely to contain archaeology and in no particular hurry to develop (all those land-bank sites that Tesco and co sit on, for starters) wouldn't be going far wrong in approaching any local societies to see if they can get all the archaeology out of the way in advance of any planning process for free/peanuts (or Unitof1's plan B, bulldoze it). Wouldn't that potentially have a significant effect upon the commercial archaeology sector?

I don't disagree that some developers could take advantage of community archaeologists in this way, however, they might find themselves falling foul of PPS5 when they come to applying for permission to develop at a later date.

Unless they have consulted the CM and worked to an agreed brief/WSI then they could find themselves in the clarts. For starters, perservation in situ or avoidance of 'substantial harm' is the watch word and preservation by record is no longer an automatically acceptable default position. So if you've preserved it by record without talking to the CM... standby for incoming.

[Sith]

..run by and partly staffed by your 'commercial' county units who I'm sure/know did very well out of them (eg subsequently getting all the contracts to write them up, a number of big projects from those days seem to be getting published 20+ years after the last MSC people had any involvement)

Er, no.

No financial provision was made for analysis or reporting at the end of MSC and the only benefit that the county units got out of it was being allowed to work out what to do with all the finds and records for twenty-odd years. An increase in ability to screw cash out of the government (or more often the lottery) is the only reason that some of these sites are now seeing the light of day.

[Sith]

(some archaeology graduates on their first excavation on one project I heard about, who couldn't wait for the supervisors to leave them to it and stop hovering over them once they had had a few weeks practice).

(My bold)

I'm sure we can have this debate without being too patronising to the interested outsiders.

[Comarch]

[quote=Dinosaur]Eeerm...in what way were most MSC jobs not commercial?

Some individual MSC people.