16th June 2005, 04:07 PM
Totally agree with Moley - there seem to be two sides of archaeology here which aren't connected:
1. Data gathering, mostly by commercial units. These go on to rest as grey lit, with little synthesis or follow up to projects apart from in exceptional cases. There are also projects such as the National Mapping Programme (an aerial survey programme currently producing maps of all known features seen through aerial survey for the whole country ever by EH) with huge amounts of amazing data being gathered but no-one looking at the results and trying to make sense of them!
2. Hundreds, if not thousands, of well-trained and inquistive undergrad and postgrad arch students crying out for research ideas for their dissertations/ thesis etc. There must be dissertations that cover the same topic again and again.
Can't we connect the two? [:p]
1. Data gathering, mostly by commercial units. These go on to rest as grey lit, with little synthesis or follow up to projects apart from in exceptional cases. There are also projects such as the National Mapping Programme (an aerial survey programme currently producing maps of all known features seen through aerial survey for the whole country ever by EH) with huge amounts of amazing data being gathered but no-one looking at the results and trying to make sense of them!
2. Hundreds, if not thousands, of well-trained and inquistive undergrad and postgrad arch students crying out for research ideas for their dissertations/ thesis etc. There must be dissertations that cover the same topic again and again.
Can't we connect the two? [:p]