29th December 2005, 11:52 AM
I have thought long and hard about this subject. I have worked with a new community group supervising their fieldwork. We aspire to do the work to a higher standard than in commercial work (which is my regular job), but the reality is that the skills will take a while to come. I should point out that they are very professional in most respects and are paying market rate for my skills.
Some would argue that this is a case of archaeology being done badly, and would try to limit the work done by community groups to non-intrusive work like fieldwalking and resistivity surveys and the like. I would not. My feeling is that community archaeology has a huge role in educating the interested public to a higher standard than Time Team does. As I have discovered, community archaeology can be essential in doing the kind of research that commercial work, or EH for that matter, seldom does. The research goals for this community group are central to EH's local research agenda, and the work will not be done by anyone else.
I think blame for the lack of excavation skills in community groups can be laid fairly at the feet of professionals who have until recently squeezed the life out of local societies. It will take a while before those skills are re-learnt. Until that time I for one am willing to do fieldwork that might be done slightly better by a commercial unit. We are after all doing much the same as field schools, which from other posts on BAJR sometimes do very shoddy work.
As for individuals who call themselves archaeologists with only the flimsiest credentials, they neither deserve nor get any respect from the real archaeologists. They only fool non-archaeologists.
Some would argue that this is a case of archaeology being done badly, and would try to limit the work done by community groups to non-intrusive work like fieldwalking and resistivity surveys and the like. I would not. My feeling is that community archaeology has a huge role in educating the interested public to a higher standard than Time Team does. As I have discovered, community archaeology can be essential in doing the kind of research that commercial work, or EH for that matter, seldom does. The research goals for this community group are central to EH's local research agenda, and the work will not be done by anyone else.
I think blame for the lack of excavation skills in community groups can be laid fairly at the feet of professionals who have until recently squeezed the life out of local societies. It will take a while before those skills are re-learnt. Until that time I for one am willing to do fieldwork that might be done slightly better by a commercial unit. We are after all doing much the same as field schools, which from other posts on BAJR sometimes do very shoddy work.
As for individuals who call themselves archaeologists with only the flimsiest credentials, they neither deserve nor get any respect from the real archaeologists. They only fool non-archaeologists.