15th July 2014, 04:56 PM
Quote:You can take this another step and suggest that there is no point in producing a product unless there is a buyer in mind even if it is one to advertise to. when did the curators last have to buy any archaeology?
Trouble with that model is that we have already made the moral compact with our society to publish our findings - we do this by taking on the "destruction" job in the first place! Having agreed to do the archaeology, in my mind it is a mortal sin demanding public crucifixion (inverted!) if we then refuse to provide the archive and report for other researchers. This unfortunately undermines our ability to play chicken with the potential buyers...
The real issue is that our product has intangible value rather than easily-calculated value - we are producing knowledge. And the bulk of our true "customers" aren't even involved in the cash deal - they are future researchers who will use our data to arrive at new understandings of the past. Our problem is the cash customers are exactly those folks who don't want our product at all because it interferes with their schedules and profits.
We have to get away from the materialistic shackles of capitalist economic models if we really want to understand the value of archaeology. Sadly, that doesn't help boost the wages...