10th October 2010, 01:24 PM
Stuart ? sorry about the hairy arses thing, that was crass. What can I say: shock slogans and mindless token tantrums are a speciality! Feel free to use it in any future publicity though.
There are two different issues here that need to be separated ? how complex our arguments have to be in order to adequately explain the past, and how successful we are at sharing the benefits of that knowledge with the non-archaeological world. In joining the two, you are making the case for dumbing down. I have blogged about this problem before, comparing archaeologists less successful books with the likes of Dan Brown and co.
http://www.diggingthedirt.com/2009/08/14...xperiment/
Or, to cut to the chase (so you don?t have to follow the link):
The challenge is to balance the credibility of the excavated evidence with a democratically accessible narrative. To neither dumb-up our investigation, nor dumb-down our results.
If this is what CSA stand for, then call my arse hairy!
There are two different issues here that need to be separated ? how complex our arguments have to be in order to adequately explain the past, and how successful we are at sharing the benefits of that knowledge with the non-archaeological world. In joining the two, you are making the case for dumbing down. I have blogged about this problem before, comparing archaeologists less successful books with the likes of Dan Brown and co.
http://www.diggingthedirt.com/2009/08/14...xperiment/
Or, to cut to the chase (so you don?t have to follow the link):
The challenge is to balance the credibility of the excavated evidence with a democratically accessible narrative. To neither dumb-up our investigation, nor dumb-down our results.
If this is what CSA stand for, then call my arse hairy!