25th February 2008, 11:58 AM
The more i deal with depositing of finds the more i have to agree with you,and i think the problem is only going to get worse. Naturely museums will claim that they have old buildings,limited storage capacity,limited staff etc; but surely when PPG16 came into effect the increase of material to be archived should have been taking into account!I get the feeling that as a modern profession archaeology is one that has been thrown together at the last moment,i also can't help but think that PPG16 is woefully inadequate! What we need instead of guidelines is an act of parliament to define in law from planning of developments through to archiving of sites. let us not forget once finds and documents are at the museums the amount of research done by many people-whether students doing phd's or pot specialists drawing up type series of pot/tile etc.