5th March 2008, 01:26 AM
Hi
Archaeology is in state control, they are the editors/enforcers and it is the states official history, all nicely standardised by your good selves, and its mostly happy and clappy and grey and faceless through a guidance note for the TCPA amended.
Landowners in particular don?t want archaeology on their land as it gives the state potential control over their resources and having been reared on subsidies they are secretive even within their own communities. That they have been given maps based on the NMP shaded pink to show the areas of crop marks on their fields (which they thought they had cleared of all encumbrances in their heroic effects to feed the nation) to denote heritage points for the ES scheme will come to be seen as the single biggest country wide act of vandalism ever perpetrated against archaeology. I cant think of anything that could compete with it. I think that state archaeologists should be kept away from them for about fifty years and then we should go and see if they have forgiven archaeology for letting the state take control.
Cropmarks came to the surface as a result of the active agricultural erosion of these sites mapped mostly since the second world war and that some archaeologists made a business of imagining that the archaeology was still there is akin to ecologists plotting the position of dead fish floating on a poisoned pond and pretending that indicated the location of a living population and ignoring the exponential increase of the poison -something that the metal detectorists have not done and their multiplication is probably the best charted as an affect of the catastrophic erosion. Maybe we should follow suit?Water Newton every field..
In the rural area that I operate the significance of the archaeology affected by development is minor compared to that effected by agriculture and even the forces of nature (I refer you to not that report again). I think that development is being unfairly used by the state in this environment or rather the state is burying its head behind development. I think to have a jaundiced archaeologist stand around on a watching brief on a 600mm wide footings for an extension because it happens to be in the curtilage of a medieval village when the other side of the hedge subsoiling is being done on a hundred acre field is patently disproportionate. My incoherence commences when I try to measure that proportion.
You said
(I refer you to not that report again).I think that future generations will be incredulous that archaeologists did not try to grab any of it in any way before it went and will be grateful for the activity of the metal detectorists. Who knows what they will think about archaeologists staring a soil in boxes at Cranfield.
You said
I think the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable. I mainly see regulatory mechanisms as restrictive and inadequate in this environment.
You said
So you need to cut some of it out. Make a consideration of archaeology the default on the 2000 planning applications and charge with profit the DTI and the utilities for all of your time spent on their schemes and dont read the archaeology reports.
You said
Pretty drastic way to get rid of me but it could work. The thing about quality is that it is related to quantity.
Archaeology is in state control, they are the editors/enforcers and it is the states official history, all nicely standardised by your good selves, and its mostly happy and clappy and grey and faceless through a guidance note for the TCPA amended.
Landowners in particular don?t want archaeology on their land as it gives the state potential control over their resources and having been reared on subsidies they are secretive even within their own communities. That they have been given maps based on the NMP shaded pink to show the areas of crop marks on their fields (which they thought they had cleared of all encumbrances in their heroic effects to feed the nation) to denote heritage points for the ES scheme will come to be seen as the single biggest country wide act of vandalism ever perpetrated against archaeology. I cant think of anything that could compete with it. I think that state archaeologists should be kept away from them for about fifty years and then we should go and see if they have forgiven archaeology for letting the state take control.
Cropmarks came to the surface as a result of the active agricultural erosion of these sites mapped mostly since the second world war and that some archaeologists made a business of imagining that the archaeology was still there is akin to ecologists plotting the position of dead fish floating on a poisoned pond and pretending that indicated the location of a living population and ignoring the exponential increase of the poison -something that the metal detectorists have not done and their multiplication is probably the best charted as an affect of the catastrophic erosion. Maybe we should follow suit?Water Newton every field..
In the rural area that I operate the significance of the archaeology affected by development is minor compared to that effected by agriculture and even the forces of nature (I refer you to not that report again). I think that development is being unfairly used by the state in this environment or rather the state is burying its head behind development. I think to have a jaundiced archaeologist stand around on a watching brief on a 600mm wide footings for an extension because it happens to be in the curtilage of a medieval village when the other side of the hedge subsoiling is being done on a hundred acre field is patently disproportionate. My incoherence commences when I try to measure that proportion.
You said
Quote:quote:
Archaeology isn't "owned by the state" but as archaeologists we have a duty of care to ensure that future people either can still appreciate monuments etc or at least have a record. Who else but public bodies can act on behalf of society as a whole? That is what we elect governments for.
(I refer you to not that report again).I think that future generations will be incredulous that archaeologists did not try to grab any of it in any way before it went and will be grateful for the activity of the metal detectorists. Who knows what they will think about archaeologists staring a soil in boxes at Cranfield.
You said
Quote:quote:
At the same time you want to erode standards by not having any regulatory mechanism for assessing a contractors work but only have curators advising on planning conditions.
I think the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable. I mainly see regulatory mechanisms as restrictive and inadequate in this environment.
You said
Quote:quote:
No one is trying to stop you thinking about anything but I haven't read anything from you that is constructive or has any solutions. Its easy to snipe from the sidelines about how us curators don't do anything, because your not the one trying really hard to ensure archaeology remains within the new planning framework, being drowned in LDF consultation documents, getting used to the new ES scheme as well as carrying on the "normal" day job of assessing over 2000 planning applications a year , 400 utilities schemes, 4 DTI schemes, arguing with developers, reading archaeology reports, and of course getting slagged of by those field archaeologists who carry out bad practice for not understanding archaeology, who then submit un-acceptable reports which understate the archaeology.
So you need to cut some of it out. Make a consideration of archaeology the default on the 2000 planning applications and charge with profit the DTI and the utilities for all of your time spent on their schemes and dont read the archaeology reports.
You said
Quote:quote:
Get real! We stop dealing with planning policy as well as DC there ain't no more archaeology! You and all of us are unemployed and the archaeological record is defined by accidental out of context finds. If curators stop checking quality then only the cheapest (and therefore most likely the worst) units survive.
Pretty drastic way to get rid of me but it could work. The thing about quality is that it is related to quantity.