12th August 2011, 11:18 PM
Perhaps this week is a good time to re-focus the debate on standards in terms of personal responsibility. For Health and Safety there is an obligation on all employees to be aware of potential risks and to take action if necessary. I would say the same is true of archaeological practice. Professional standards of behaviour apply at all levels of the profession (and so does IFA membership), not just at the top. If you know, or have strong grounds to believe, that a Registered Organisation is failing to follow the policies and procedures it professes, then you should raise with the IFA: even if this does not trigger a disciplinary action, it will be considered the next time the IFA monitor them. If you are aware and do nothing then you are at fault as much as they are.
But underlying my point was that these breaches which seem so obvious from a distance genuinely tend to become less clear from close up: often they are the result of people trying to their best in difficult circumstances, in which no single person was culpable, and more often still they turn out to be a carefully considered and justifiable excavation strategy that looks unconventional. I have 'excavated' a section across a medieval town ditch by Hymac - this was not because I couldn't be bothered to excavate by hand, but because it was the only practicable approach within the constraints of the site (as the curator agreed).
But underlying my point was that these breaches which seem so obvious from a distance genuinely tend to become less clear from close up: often they are the result of people trying to their best in difficult circumstances, in which no single person was culpable, and more often still they turn out to be a carefully considered and justifiable excavation strategy that looks unconventional. I have 'excavated' a section across a medieval town ditch by Hymac - this was not because I couldn't be bothered to excavate by hand, but because it was the only practicable approach within the constraints of the site (as the curator agreed).