Standard and guidance for archaeological advice by historic environment services

[P Prentice]

i don't care who provides standards for curators - just as in principle i don't care who provides standards for ALL archaeologists, commercial, academic or amateur. but standards are a must, now. i've dealt with legacy sites and dead archives and it is apparent that the level of quality of work is constantly subject to external constraints, be it skills or funding or interest in the site.

if the IfA want to do it, in the absence of EH or some other state body, so be it. (Personally a national licence for all practioners is my preference). I agree that the proposal as it stands needs work. how many people writing about how bad it is actually commented during the consultation period?

what i have a problem with is a free for all approach. sites don't get written up,. people carry out unnecessary work, people fail to carry out necessary work. furthermore, curators across the country have a variety of approaches which are sometimes inconsistent and are occasionally frustrating for their high-handeedness, other times extremely effective and forethoughtful. best practice needs transparency and agreed common standards. we all know of sites that have been bollixed by poor curator handling, poor excavation, or poor writing up. and as for the shnky archives that are depsoited by some within the profession...

course, the best way for the IfA not to represent you is to stand apart and wave a fist shouting you don't and you'll never represent me; clearly the Groucho Marx approach has its supporters, but i can't quite see the point of tarring everyone who gets involved with the brush of co-option. it's a bit like calling everyone in a union a communist. lots of people getting involved and figthing might however have a positive outcome for the majority, which are the least well-paid.

but to return to the point in case, the way things are at the moment, without common standards, the quality of archaeology at a county level is not the same. some places have implemented HLCs etc. others don't see the point, but this shows up when carrying out DBAs or other work which sits on county borders. equally monitoring can be a phone call or can be almost a job interview; this is a system like so much in this country open to abuse, which everyone subsequently turns round open-mouthed and gasps 'how could this happen so, in such a world-class economy?'

(and i don't believe in only ROs working in the profession either, just in case someone out there thinks i do... the licence system should be tied the individual and their ability to complete projects to an appropriate standard)

@Unit: the TCPA only applies in the UK, i think you'll find. As you raised the idea of people coming into the UK to carry out archaeology, i thought i'd just point out that elsewhere in Europe an HER type system is in operation. and some form of monitoring is built into the process of archaeological works. I think most foreign archaeologists would be up to speed on the concept. the UK is not a special case. i'm afraid that you'll need to rephrase some of your other comments as i can't understand you.

good post - glad you are back

[BAJR]

I can second that. says exactly what my position would be on this

[Martin Locock]

I was thinking about the development of professional practice, and my judgement would be:

project objectives better commercial
quality of fieldwork better pre-commercial
speed of fieldwork better commercial
completeness and consistency of recording better commercial
quality of recording better pre-commercial
production of report/publication better commercial
quality of report/publication better pre-commercial
archive completeness better commercial


So it's not a question of good and bad, but rather a shift in what we think we are trying to achieve. Which is not to say that we can't adopt the best of pre-commercial practice: I suppose the problem is that those elements are harder to quantify, measure and cost.

[Dinosaur]

Got a bit lost in the middle of that but think I agree with all those :face-approve:

Being in a position of regularly having to get into the nuts and bolts of other people's big projects via their glossy monographs, it's obvious which ones have been slung together by harrassed POs to a deadline, some appalling inconsistences are usually there once you start trying to actually use the things, gone are the days when the site director could take his time and produce a rounded masterpiece without contradictions - having said that I suspect one getting produced 2012/13 with my name on bits of it will suffer the same affliction despite all efforts to the contrary, the contractual deadline's just too tight what with trying to fit in with specialist timetables, getting C14 etc, another year would have been better but of course tthe client needs to wrap-up the temporary companies, bank accounts and whatever created for the development. The DoE was never in such a rush.... :face-crying:

[kevin wooldridge]

I think I agree with some of Martins critique, but would say on the quality and efficiency of publication that this has more to do with IT and desktop advances rather than much to do with commercialism...

[Sith]

The DoE was never in such a rush....

True, but there are still lots of sites dug by them and under other regimes (MSC being probably the biggest offender) that have never been written up and probably never will be. At least a contract and a deadline creates an incentive to get the work done.

[Unitof1]

Sorry oilks but I don’t think that you lot should get away with your collective love in about what standards are necessary .

This is typical rubbish

[SIZE=3]what i have a problem with is a free for all approach. sites don't get written up,. people carry out unnecessary work, people fail to carryout necessary work. furthermore, curators across the country have a variety of approaches which are sometimes inconsistent and are occasionally frustrating for their high-handeedness, other times extremely effective and forethoughtful.best practice needs transparency and agreed common standards. we all know ofsites that have been bollixed by poor curator handling, poor excavation, or poor writing up. and as for the shnky archives that are depsoited by some within the profession...

[/SIZE]

as for what martins commercial and pre-commercial- is meaningless what are you on about



Sites don’t get written up and yes it’s a rule that sites do not get written up. In fact so much so that I would say that I could go to any court and provide ample evidence that it is the rule, the standard. I will go further and say it is not a duty of a field archaeologist to write up their site. Maybe record something yes, write something on the back of an envelope and throw it in the air, if anybody cares to catch it (the shnty archives) its their problem and they should bloody well pay for it. It is the duty of a field archaeologist to look in the field (field being the physical world) and if they get excited and can be bothered to pick something up, then that has got a chance of becoming archaeology (but not much) and when they pick it up they should be fully aware of the cost implications to their families.

Its about time field archaeologists kept the money that they managed to get off the developers and stop wasting it on pretend writing up (oh we do that already) . In a nut shell writing up is bollocks and merely a ruse by the managers to oppress the workers. Its their one and only ruse at that.

[P Prentice]

Sorry oilks but I don?t think that you lot should get away with your collective love in about what standards are necessary .

This is typical rubbish



as for what martins commercial and pre-commercial- is meaningless what are you on about



Sites don?t get written up and yes it?s a rule that sites do not get written up. In fact so much so that I would say that I could go to any court and provide ample evidence that it is the rule, the standard. I will go further and say it is not a duty of a field archaeologist to write up their site. Maybe record something yes, write something on the back of an envelope and throw it in the air, if anybody cares to catch it (the shnty archives) its their problem and they should bloody well pay for it. It is the duty of a field archaeologist to look in the field (field being the physical world) and if they get excited and can be bothered to pick something up, then that has got a chance of becoming archaeology (but not much) and when they pick it up they should be fully aware of the cost implications to their families.

Its about time field archaeologists kept the money that they managed to get off the developers and stop wasting it on pretend writing up (oh we do that already) . In a nut shell writing up is bollocks and merely a ruse by the managers to oppress the workers. Its their one and only ruse at that.

i'm not sure you can by any of your definition call yourself an archaeologist

[Sith]

Thanks for short circuiting my block list and making me have to read that drivel.

}

[Unitof1]

Yes Sith needs all the time there is to answer the phone calls from all those publishers falling over themselves to throw money about to get the next great written up site thing thats available.
The publishers obviously will be struggling to get through though as Silt will be deep in negotiating the purchase price for the priceless archive of locally, naw regionally, no must be internationally, significant unique antiquarian stuff,cor it must run into millions, with the museums. I imagine the museums main concern will be the stampede of new visitors that it will all generate,

anyway what the new curator standard needs is to make sure that we keep pretending that writting up and archeiving is very important.

Call yourself what you like Prentice