19th September 2013, 01:08 PM
P Prentice Wrote:it is far better for the resource and for archaeological theory if it is undertaken as a commercial venture. no university can undertake the kind of projects we do. they do not have our funding and they do not have (with a few notable exceptions with commercial units) have our skills. i know for a fact that some of the leading academics have on record that given their time again they would be in commercial archaeology because that is where the best research is undertaken. the major drawback is that inadequate work is permitted, mainly because the lowest tender still rules, but often because there is nobody in place to recognise the neccessity or the opportunity to push for the best possible. we all know that a vast amount of mitigation is crap and that far too much effort is spent on the least return, such as watching briefs on pipe trenches
and now dinosaur will tell us how brilliant he is -
Interesting angle...........not the one I was thinking of. But I think in general I agree!
If its going to be dug, better to be dug by professionals. With the proviso...........there is a lot of grey. Amateurs can be just as good, professionals can work for free.
And yes, permitted post-ex and research has to be justified and is often limited.
What would be great is a department/society etc that engaged with commercial units/projects and vice versa.
Where are the undergrads/ postgrads/ researchers looking through the grey literature ripe with evidence that disproves the current 'academic' thinking?
Where are the researchers to carry on where our budgets run out?
Where are the societies to dig beyond the excavated area to answer the questions we are often left with.....If only we could have looked beyond the development boundary we could have seen if A was contemporary with B, seen if C was an square barrow or a structure....etc.
But where, barring the odd exception, are the commercial units that have the time, money or clients permission to engage with academia/societies? :face-stir:
Why is there such a gulf between field and classroom?