26th March 2012, 07:18 PM
On the reporting/publication front, has anyone got any evidence that significant numbers of developments have ever in reality failed to get signed off just because the archaeology wasn't published? I can think of jobs where we, the contractor, have forced stuff through (pay your bill or you don't get the report) but few where curators (usually EH inspectors, actually) have really flexed their muscles, but that might just be my own personal experience. Developers tend to be cooperative up to the point where they've manged to get the ******archaeologists off their site and can build something, then they need to have their fingers battered to a pulp to prize any further cash away from them to carry out proper px and I've certainly worked on a few projects where the county has never found the spine to keep chasing them to take stuff to publication - I've got a lump of strat Roman town (+20k juicy finds) which after ten years has never got past PX assessment and probably never will since the then curator decided to run and hide, and theres a big chunk of my pet quarry which was done in the '90s by another company (under the same curator as it happens) who've only ever produced one of those minimalist PX assessments (in 1997) that just says 'Yup, we found this much stuff and it needs to go to analysis' - which of course is F-all use to anyone if no further work is forced through the system.
I'll say one thing, seem to be spending a lot more time thinking about curatorial-type things since I've been playing on here, u think an hour a day on BAJR ought to be made compulsory industry wide? - or would we get too many entries for the caption competitions?
I'll say one thing, seem to be spending a lot more time thinking about curatorial-type things since I've been playing on here, u think an hour a day on BAJR ought to be made compulsory industry wide? - or would we get too many entries for the caption competitions?