28th December 2005, 08:10 PM
'Do I hear war drums bein beaten perchance? I suppose to answer the question-I don`t know why we argue amongst ourselves.It could be that after years of the "same old" and endless appeals for change,the people at the sharp-end become powerless and turn on each other.'
My point wasn't so much people within the profession turning on each other - I would hope that we could do that in a dignified fashion, and where necessary through the IFA (which I have some, perhaps mis-guided faith in).
It's the type of people who claim themselves to be archaeologists based on very little apparent experience or knowledge that I'm criticising. You all must have come across them at some time: many run local night-school courses on the subject, carry out excavations with bands of volunteers and made quite extraordinary claims about themselves and their discoveries. I don't know how prevalent this is in other parts of the country, but where I am (the north end of the wonderful North) there are at least two that I could name. As I said before, while it would be easy for the and well-informed (professional or amateur, this isn't a dig on behalf of the commercial and research sector) to call them crack-pots and ignore them they are doing a great deal of damage, largely because people are afraid to openly attack them. They are also extremely good at getting publicity, either through local press or TV, perhaps the fault of Time Team's influence. In addition they are exploiting money meant for good causes - particularly the HLF and LHI, which is a disgrace on moral grounds as much as archaeological.
Archaeology isn't like a lot of other professions/academic disciplines, people quite like to do it in their spare time for fun, but also as a means of making themselves look important. While the former can be quite useful, the latter is undermining all the good work that we do and making us look bad.
What can be done? A forum for more open and public critical appraisal of work by all (professional and amateur) would be a good start. This needs to be more coherent than the usual moaning and pub-gossip. In order for this to happen it needs to be published; although the problems of lible obviously need to be taken very seriously. None of the mainstream publications by the CBA, IFA etc would be able (or probably willing to deal with it) and it might need to be more regularly covered. The Digger is an excellent potential place for this to start, perhaps crossed with Private Eye...
My point wasn't so much people within the profession turning on each other - I would hope that we could do that in a dignified fashion, and where necessary through the IFA (which I have some, perhaps mis-guided faith in).
It's the type of people who claim themselves to be archaeologists based on very little apparent experience or knowledge that I'm criticising. You all must have come across them at some time: many run local night-school courses on the subject, carry out excavations with bands of volunteers and made quite extraordinary claims about themselves and their discoveries. I don't know how prevalent this is in other parts of the country, but where I am (the north end of the wonderful North) there are at least two that I could name. As I said before, while it would be easy for the and well-informed (professional or amateur, this isn't a dig on behalf of the commercial and research sector) to call them crack-pots and ignore them they are doing a great deal of damage, largely because people are afraid to openly attack them. They are also extremely good at getting publicity, either through local press or TV, perhaps the fault of Time Team's influence. In addition they are exploiting money meant for good causes - particularly the HLF and LHI, which is a disgrace on moral grounds as much as archaeological.
Archaeology isn't like a lot of other professions/academic disciplines, people quite like to do it in their spare time for fun, but also as a means of making themselves look important. While the former can be quite useful, the latter is undermining all the good work that we do and making us look bad.
What can be done? A forum for more open and public critical appraisal of work by all (professional and amateur) would be a good start. This needs to be more coherent than the usual moaning and pub-gossip. In order for this to happen it needs to be published; although the problems of lible obviously need to be taken very seriously. None of the mainstream publications by the CBA, IFA etc would be able (or probably willing to deal with it) and it might need to be more regularly covered. The Digger is an excellent potential place for this to start, perhaps crossed with Private Eye...