Current Archaeology editorial

[Marcus Brody]

I've a huge amount of respect for Andrew Selkirk and all he's done for archaeology over the years, but when reading Current Archaeology I do find the frequent professional-bashing a little wearing. I can be quite happily reading through an issue, enjoying the articles and features, then turn over the page to be faced with a diatribe about how I'm no good at my job because I undertake archaeology for money, rather than for interest or for love of the subject. In common with most evil professional archaeologists, personal interest and love of the subject is one of the major reasons why I do the job. I'd argue that anyone who's prepared to put up with the poor pay and conditions face by most professional archaeologists has already demonstrated a fairly high level of commitment to the job - indeed, it could be said that when faced with these, the easy option would be to take better-paid employment in an office and do archaeology as a hobby.

I'd also suggest that setting up such a clear 'amateur - good, professional -bad' division has had a lot to do with fostering suspicion between the two sectors. I suppose it's a case of chicken and egg, but if local societies are frequently told by the best-selling archaeology magazine that all professionals view them with distain and want to stop them undertaking fieldwork, they're likely to respond to any professional in a suspicious manner. As I said on the IFA thread, I try to make contact with local societies when undertaking an EIA, both to gauge their opinion on the effect on recorded sites, and to try to find out whether they've identified any additional material during their research. However, in the majority of cases, I don't receive any response, and when I do get a reply, it's often along the lines of 'this is our patch, we don't want anyone else working here'. Indeed, I've even had one local society tell me that, yes, they are aware of additional sites in their area, but no, they're not prepared to tell me where or what they are - risking the possibility that said sites would be destroyed by the development rather than sharing the information. On that basis, I wouldn't necessarily agree with Mr Selkirk's belief that the best way of making the wider community aware of archaeology is for local societies to undertake developer-led work - don't get me wrong, I think that this is certainly something that the professional sector could do better, but I've found that local societies can be as secretive and closed-mouthed as any confidentiality-clause-constrained contractor when it comes to 'their' archaeology.

I'm also slightly uncomfortable with statements like

An essential component is ‘access’, which means that archaeology must cater for the socially deprived and to school children

and

The CBA has concentratedon selling archaeology to the general public (‘access’ rather than in finding the right role for local societies, or the right balance between amateur and professional.

I'm sure it wasn't his intention, but these statements sound a little like Mr Selkirk is saying that only the 'right sort' of people (local society members) are entitled to have an interest in, or get involved with archaeology, and that the socially-disadvantaged, school children and the general public have no role - an argument that would appear to run directly counter to the main thrust of the article, which is very much in favour of wider access. I’ve been involved in several projects that tried to get people involved in archaeology from outside the ‘white, middle aged, middle class’ demographic that makes up the core constituency of most local societies (not that there’s anything wrong with being white, middle class and middle aged – I’d probably fall into it myself)

I'd also take issue with the statement that local societies should be given first chance at certain jobs because they're cheaper than professional archaeologists. Surely the main concern should be that the work is done well, not that it's done cheaply? I know that many local societies undertake excellent fieldwork, but there are also some who don't have an active field side - how do you prevent such a society undertaking work that trashes a site?

I hope that this post isn't viewed as an attack on Andrew Selkirk, or on local societies generally - as I said at the start, he's played a very significant role in promoting archaeology to the wider public, and Current Archaeology is a fine publication, but I do have concerns that setting up such a climate of opposition between amateurs and professionals is unlikely to do either group much good.

Just as a matter of interest, I’d also note that the article is from October 2010 rather than October this year.