11th October 2005, 10:22 PM
Could`nt agree more. Once again though, we are back where we started-standards.Absolutely no point whatsoever in drafting standards if they are not vigorously policed, let alone monitored. In a polite voice-academics and commercial types have been and are still, guilty of approaching archaeology as though they own it, can make it up as they go along and, all this in the comfort of knowing that when they have finished with it...no-one will ever know! This attitude is rampant amongst grown ups working on university projects abroad (if my experiences are anything to go by) and I feel that where a host country does not have an integrated/formalised infrastructure-this weakness is exploited fully by the professor-types as they can literally do as they please. In a similar vein, commercial concerns here in the UK can and, do, behave in an identical fashion. The "professionals" don`t have the right to vilify university standards just yet...if anything, we should be way ahead of the universities in terms of standards. Universities usually dig once a year, the commercial world works all year round. We should be seeing a profession that prides itself in its high standards in the 21st century. The reality is strikingly different. Archaeology has been dumped in a competative environment where the cheapest wins. Our Institute has consistantly failed in its mandate of maintaining standards.Some would say that they have`nt even tried. Does`nt take a Nobel prize winner to predict the outcome of this little recipe in a commercial environment............