9th November 2006, 02:47 PM
This separation is bad for archaeology. To take extremes...
IFA conference tends to be contractors and curators.
TAG conference tends to be academics.
And ne'er the twain do meet. Thus academics are often painfully unaware of advances in methodology, technique, analysis and interpretation that is going on in the commercial world; and commercial archaeologists are not always in touch with developments in theory and ideas in the academic world.
The academics' theories are then based on out-of-date field data and experience, and the fieldworkers assumptions are made on the basis of insufficiently thought-through theories.
IFA conference tends to be contractors and curators.
TAG conference tends to be academics.
And ne'er the twain do meet. Thus academics are often painfully unaware of advances in methodology, technique, analysis and interpretation that is going on in the commercial world; and commercial archaeologists are not always in touch with developments in theory and ideas in the academic world.
The academics' theories are then based on out-of-date field data and experience, and the fieldworkers assumptions are made on the basis of insufficiently thought-through theories.