4th June 2010, 10:34 AM
troll Wrote:3. Sadly, with the runaway(and deliberately un-policed) decline in professional standards seen in "professional" archaeology and the almost total lack of competence in "academic" archaeology,
Yes, when I think back to all the really important sites that we dug in the 70s and 80s using the amazingly high standards prevalent in archaeology then. You know, utilising the specialist skills of unpaid, unqualified, inexperienced students who camped throughout the excavation "season". If only the professionalism exhibited by us writing notes in notebooks as records and then storing them in garages/attics where still with us today. It was fantastic that only the "Director" filled out records because (let's face it) there's no way "diggers" can grasp the complexities of how to describe a mosaic. I mean its hard to imagine now that these outstanding standards were applied throughout many years of an excavation and that the professionalism and dedication continued through the post-ex project. The use of vets as bone specialists and storage of pottery in buckets! Inspired! The way that funds for excavations were provided by the DoE to unregulated, unmonitored organisations meant that they were fully appropriately accountable to themselves, not like all this stupid polluter pays, required by law, curatorial monitoring, bureaucratic rubbish now! The fantastic way that archaeologists could write a Shire book on their excavation/site and then prove their exceptional standards by musing on their excavation for years until finally losing the records down the back of the sofa and making sure that a report existed for prosperity by being far to busy to write it.
Oh how I miss those halcyon days of casual sexism, no employment rights and no health and safety, As a Director I could do anything I liked without some pencil pusher from county hall telling me that it was "illegal". I mean what do those council whallas know? They don't know one side of a pit dwelling from a Piltdown skull. Anyway got to go, busy this afternoon "interviewing" a lovely young filly for a job in finds (can't have here getting muddy can we!) so must a have a quick tipple and my afternoon nap. "You lot .... just keep digging and make sure you clean up your loose before Tea"
toodle pip!
Steven