8th March 2011, 02:37 PM
(This post was last modified: 8th March 2011, 02:40 PM by kevin wooldridge.)
GPStone Wrote:Perhaps its something about our commercial background which leads us to view curators as police. I'd rather see their role as offering balance and uniformity of compliance across their regional remits...
The system that has arisen does put curators in that role and you are right it is probably unfair. But it has been forced upon them. I was one of the people (back in the mid-80s) that went along to IfA meetings and conferences and warned against the path of rampant commercialism that the IfA seemed intent on endorsing through it's failure to support the then existing regionally and locally defined archaeological services. I can (if pressed privately and off record) name the heads of the two large units and the one national body who at that time most actively pursued this agenda. Not that it really matters anymore. They are all long gone, But unfortunately their 'memorial' is the state of UK archaeology 2011....
I think rampant commercialism was wrong then, and it's still wrong now!! Archaeology works best in a spirit of co-operation and not in the tension of competition. What archaeology needs now is people with guts and conviction (and influence!!) to stand up and say that decisions back in the 1980s were wrong but that it is not too late even now to change. I wouldn't stop any of the large organisations from bitching amongst themselves, but perhaps those amongst us who care, need to grasp a little of the 'Big Society' message and support the continuation of local and regional archaeology teams where they exist and are committed to the study of a locality and to support the establishment of more of the same. And allow those groups to prosper without fear of being squeezed by the 'corporates'....
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...