23rd September 2010, 12:08 PM
Hi
Your quote stopped just before the actual key statement of that report which is:
"The assessment has shown that the present water management system is succeeding in maintaining the condition of the trackway"
So it's more a triumph of selective quotation rather than proving your point!
I don't think the point that every physical object is susceptible to entropy is a reasoned argument for allowing any method of retrieval. So what if most people do not have the training, qualifications and understanding of context. Knowing what information is lost by simply hacking things out of the ground is part of what makes an archaeologist. It's not a case of moral superiority, it's simply having specialist knowledge. If the idea that "better out than buried whatever the method" is accepted, then there is no point in having archaeologists is there? Because by advocating artefact retrieval in any circumstances that's setting up a proposition that only objects have historical/economic value and that the context is unimportant. Personally I don't care what MDs do, I am an archaeologists. MY job is to ensure a as complete as possible record is made of past human activity when that information is at immediate threat, not to find shiny things. I may have research interests which can only be investigated through excavation of non-threatened sites, but in those circumstances I'm even more bound by the requirement to record as the only threat to the archaeology is ME.
So what if some shiny things don't get found? Who cares is the human race loses some more Roman coins to eroision? All this excitment over hoards for example, mostly they are just collections of coins, all of which have alredy been identified from other finds and have already been fully conserved and curated. The most intresting thing about the Shapwick hoard for exmple was that is was located under the floor a of room in a villa!
What contribution to knowledge about the Roman period has that helmet given us, oh it's shown that someone had a helmet in the roman period, whoopse do! A pre-development investigation of a small Roman period settlement will supply so much more about the lives of local people, their diet, their health, their economic situation, their agricultural practices, the environment in which they lived, it may give us a glimpse into their belief system, it may show us patterns of activity shared with other people in places hundreds of miles from them, it can show us the geographical movement of individuals, the trading links etc......etc..
Just because lots of people think a helmet is more exciting doesn't mean their right! After all, millions of people buy Coldplay albums! without Irony!
Something isn't good just because lots of people can't discriminate.
Your quote stopped just before the actual key statement of that report which is:
"The assessment has shown that the present water management system is succeeding in maintaining the condition of the trackway"
So it's more a triumph of selective quotation rather than proving your point!
I don't think the point that every physical object is susceptible to entropy is a reasoned argument for allowing any method of retrieval. So what if most people do not have the training, qualifications and understanding of context. Knowing what information is lost by simply hacking things out of the ground is part of what makes an archaeologist. It's not a case of moral superiority, it's simply having specialist knowledge. If the idea that "better out than buried whatever the method" is accepted, then there is no point in having archaeologists is there? Because by advocating artefact retrieval in any circumstances that's setting up a proposition that only objects have historical/economic value and that the context is unimportant. Personally I don't care what MDs do, I am an archaeologists. MY job is to ensure a as complete as possible record is made of past human activity when that information is at immediate threat, not to find shiny things. I may have research interests which can only be investigated through excavation of non-threatened sites, but in those circumstances I'm even more bound by the requirement to record as the only threat to the archaeology is ME.
So what if some shiny things don't get found? Who cares is the human race loses some more Roman coins to eroision? All this excitment over hoards for example, mostly they are just collections of coins, all of which have alredy been identified from other finds and have already been fully conserved and curated. The most intresting thing about the Shapwick hoard for exmple was that is was located under the floor a of room in a villa!
What contribution to knowledge about the Roman period has that helmet given us, oh it's shown that someone had a helmet in the roman period, whoopse do! A pre-development investigation of a small Roman period settlement will supply so much more about the lives of local people, their diet, their health, their economic situation, their agricultural practices, the environment in which they lived, it may give us a glimpse into their belief system, it may show us patterns of activity shared with other people in places hundreds of miles from them, it can show us the geographical movement of individuals, the trading links etc......etc..
Just because lots of people think a helmet is more exciting doesn't mean their right! After all, millions of people buy Coldplay albums! without Irony!
Something isn't good just because lots of people can't discriminate.
Steven