11th September 2008, 06:18 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Paul Belford
I use the word [u]research</u> deliberately.
For, regardless of how it is paid for, or under what circumstances it comes about, we must remember that all archaeological work is research.
I have a bit of a problem with the use of the term 'research' in relation to developer-funded work. When dealing with large important sites, it is very seriously and justifiably taken into consideration. But, for every large site there are probably a dozen smaller ones were very little is found, or certainly not enough to make much difference to any local research. In some cases, say watching briefs or small building recordings, there is no mention of anything approaching research aims in the brief and so no-one in their right mind would include in their costs ('we're going to look at the socio-economic regional importance of you former pig shed Mr McNulty') because they wouldn't win any work.
If you started waving a word like 'research' around with most developers they would have a fit, or wonder what the hell you were on about. I also don't think it's very efficient in many cases to deal with larger research aims on a piecemeal, project by project basis. Far better to save the developers some money and have a larger synthesis of results published every once in a while (this would certainly be useful for small buildng recordings), perhaps EH could stump up some cash - only joking!
I seen my job largely as producing a record of what is there, as objectively as possible (which isn't very in archaeology) and putting into its local, regional and national context. Is that research? I'm not sure.
How does this relate to the topic? If research is included within each project then, as such a potentially vague term (you could, after all, carry on researching something indefinately and I'm sure there are plenty of people who have/are currently doing so), which might be dealt with in very different manner from one organisation to another (1man mentioned about university units being heavier on it than others) it makes for quite a lot of potential variety in cost.