What do you want?

[Marcus Brody]

Not exactly, I mean more like turning up on site (this is entirely from the point of view of commercial, developer funded work) and feeling that you have as much reason to be there as everyone else on site and that your contribution is worthwhile.

This is something that I'm sure anyone who's ever worked on a commercial site is familiar with - the feeling that the main contractor views your presence as nothing more than a nuisance, an annoying hoop he has to jump through before he can get on with the main business of construction. The fact that the other trades on site see no value in your work and view it only as a source of delay and lost bonuses can have an incredibly demoralising effect.

To a certain extent, however, I feel that commercial archaeologists are their own worst enemies in this regard, often being far too quick to cave in to the demands of the developer. How many times have you seen a company agree to an unrealistic start date or completion target, simply to avoid inconveniencing a developer ('Oh, you need us on site tomorrow? Well, we've not agreed the project design with the council's archaeologist, and all our staff are out on another site, but we'll definitely be there!' or 'You've booked the concrete for a week today, so we have to finish digging this deeply stratified medieval settlement by then? No problem!').

If more companies had the bottle to stand up and say 'No, that's not acceptable. We're here to help you fulfil a requirement of your planning consent, which says that you have to deal with the archaeological issue to the satisfaction of the council, and that means that we’ll have to agree the scope of work with them before you start / you'll have to delay the concrete until we've finished', the sector as a whole might get a bit more respect. At the moment, too many archaeologists appear to adopt an apologetic semi-embarrassed tone when dealing with developers, almost thanking them for allowing the archaeologists on site, and bending over backwards to avoid causing any inconvenience. While a good working relationship with the developer is always an advantage, sometimes it’s going to be necessary to say no, making it clear that we’re not on the site at their sufferance, but as a requirement of their being granted planning permission. They're not doing us a favour by allowing archaeological work to take place, it's something they have to deal with if they want to implement that consent, and construct their building.