Standard and guidance for archaeological advice by historic environment services

[P Prentice]

I was thinking about the development of professional practice, and my judgement would be:

project objectives better commercial
quality of fieldwork better pre-commercial
speed of fieldwork better commercial
completeness and consistency of recording better commercial
quality of recording better pre-commercial
production of report/publication better commercial
quality of report/publication better pre-commercial
archive completeness better commercial


So it's not a question of good and bad, but rather a shift in what we think we are trying to achieve. Which is not to say that we can't adopt the best of pre-commercial practice: I suppose the problem is that those elements are harder to quantify, measure and cost.

curiously i dont agree with much on this list - guess its all relative to ones experience

i would rather still be working for a county unit, doing a proper job with research as an objective - not an afterthought