21st February 2011, 02:44 PM
I think that there are issues with the practises of clients who insist on using consultants. When dealing with subcontractors where costs and margins may vary hugely and charges may be inflated wherever possible, consultants are often a good deal. In the case of archaeology, while this sometimes happens, often prices are pared down to as low as possible and rarely moreso than at present. Then again, some large clients have begun to get rid of consultants as a result of longstanding relationships so this is being increasingly recognised by construction businesses.
I'd like to bring it back to David's earlier point: what is the value of commercial archaeology in this environment? Is it publicity? Is it ethical compliance and socially acceptable practises? Is it the nice warm fuzzy fealing a project manager of a construction company gets when he's allowed to handle the couple of pieces of medieval green-glaze saved from destruction by his investment in heritage, or his mind-blank at how those clever (if slightly grubby looking) archaeologists decifer the mystery of that important post-med drainage ditch?
Passing the costs of justifiable work onto the construction industry seems entirely right to me, as does the defining of that justifiable requirement within research frameworks, by people with the appropriate knowledge and just using common sense (if its interesting or 'archaeologically productive' or contributes to increasing our knowledge then it deserves attention). But I've put slots into countless post-med drainage ditches and tested what seems like a never-ending number of land-drains and I'm yet to find one that has told me anything much more than that people have been farming here for a few centuries. Did it need ten slots when it could have been characterised with one or two?
What's more, can we push techniques forward so that it at least appears that we're trying to make an effort to move in the contruction friendly direction? It takes ten minutes to GPS in a site and overlay appropriately selected hand illustrations onto it rather than 10 hours of planning it in detail.
The problem we have is that we've been calling for better employment benefits and significantly increased pay for a long time now, and I think we can say that without any question we deserve that and a lot more (some respect and treatment like members of the developed world from time to time wouldn't go amis in some quarters). But, there is no way on earth that a client with any common sense is going to allow our industry to simply pass on those increases directly to them without the business/economic necessity or a return. We have to justify ourselves. I don't feel comfortable with where that sometimes leads me, but I also feel like we have been going round in circles for quite a while in this industry and perhaps now is the time to bite the bullet and begin to unravel these issues.
I'd like to bring it back to David's earlier point: what is the value of commercial archaeology in this environment? Is it publicity? Is it ethical compliance and socially acceptable practises? Is it the nice warm fuzzy fealing a project manager of a construction company gets when he's allowed to handle the couple of pieces of medieval green-glaze saved from destruction by his investment in heritage, or his mind-blank at how those clever (if slightly grubby looking) archaeologists decifer the mystery of that important post-med drainage ditch?
Passing the costs of justifiable work onto the construction industry seems entirely right to me, as does the defining of that justifiable requirement within research frameworks, by people with the appropriate knowledge and just using common sense (if its interesting or 'archaeologically productive' or contributes to increasing our knowledge then it deserves attention). But I've put slots into countless post-med drainage ditches and tested what seems like a never-ending number of land-drains and I'm yet to find one that has told me anything much more than that people have been farming here for a few centuries. Did it need ten slots when it could have been characterised with one or two?
What's more, can we push techniques forward so that it at least appears that we're trying to make an effort to move in the contruction friendly direction? It takes ten minutes to GPS in a site and overlay appropriately selected hand illustrations onto it rather than 10 hours of planning it in detail.
The problem we have is that we've been calling for better employment benefits and significantly increased pay for a long time now, and I think we can say that without any question we deserve that and a lot more (some respect and treatment like members of the developed world from time to time wouldn't go amis in some quarters). But, there is no way on earth that a client with any common sense is going to allow our industry to simply pass on those increases directly to them without the business/economic necessity or a return. We have to justify ourselves. I don't feel comfortable with where that sometimes leads me, but I also feel like we have been going round in circles for quite a while in this industry and perhaps now is the time to bite the bullet and begin to unravel these issues.