14th October 2012, 07:13 PM
Over-reliance on large building projects will not help archaeology restructure itself as a profession. It will only put off the inevitable for a few months, years maybe. In Ireland where a similar coupling went unquestioned, and in fact was supported by government policies that encouraged road building and massive green filed housing estates, there is massive structural unemployment within archaeology now. The archaeology sector did not diversity into other areas, indeed there was no reason to as the immediate rewards were so high. In hindsight it would have been better to have tried to future proof some sections of the sector so that at least some jobs could have been saved.
Also the ConDems are only pouring money into roads, they are not putting money into other building programmes that could also create jobs either through excavation, EIS and built heritage renovation etc. I was reading this earlier today and it was pretty worrying about the path that UK archaeology is taking as a result of government policy http://heritagebusinessjournal.com/2012/...chaeology/
Also the ConDems are only pouring money into roads, they are not putting money into other building programmes that could also create jobs either through excavation, EIS and built heritage renovation etc. I was reading this earlier today and it was pretty worrying about the path that UK archaeology is taking as a result of government policy http://heritagebusinessjournal.com/2012/...chaeology/