Sensible Archaeology?

[Stuart Rathbone]

Yeah that's the ones! Where is the modern equivalent?And I know what you mean about TV books and the rest, but the history sections seem to be flourishing, and they aren't all filled with pop up books and piffle. So why will the public read history but not archaeology? I believe TV ratings indicate that there is an interest in the subject.

[Daniel Eriksson]

Yeah I've heard of stuff like that. Why fill in a context sheet, you're just perpetuating the orthodoxy. Why not write a poem about how you experienced the site?

"Oh ditch fill 729
you are both orange
and brown
your gritty texture
and firm compaction
reminds me of the smell
of my first love..."

Oh how lovley. Remeber that we discussed that poem on site outside Navan, and it seems that you still have not joined the dark side. A very nice initiative, I must say.

[Digger]

seen some context sheets, well, it would have better if they hadn't been filled in.

[Jack]

"No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher."
-Mr Miyagi

[Dinosaur]

I've seen quite a few filled in by the bad teacher.....

[Stuart Rathbone]

Hey Daniel, long time mate, how's things?

So first this went up in Past Horizons

http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/3085

and that was followed by a longer piece on the brand new Archnews website

http://www.archnews.co.uk/featured/3532-...tions.html

[gwyl]

i'd say it's better to state your position and have to defend it, than to use a nebulous phrase as a stick to beat others with when they fail to achieve the clarity of your own vision of the past...
practising archaeology is in itself a journey on which one learns a mass of new information, some of it practical some of it not, which one attempts to apply to the past, but it is all subject to the practitioner's own world-view, prejudices, and understandings of the structures of the discipline, as much as of reality - and so, i would suggest that it is their views as much as - if not more - their interpretative methodologies to which you are objecting - but then again, i might be misreading your drawing attention to the Past Horizons article

[moreno]

Reading through the posts I am reminded of an article published by Kent Flannery back in 1982. Some of you may know it, some may not. I took the liberty of posting a link to the article for those who may be interested in reading it. It reads relevant to today. I bear no responsibility for the green highlighting nor the red stars appearing in the margins. Please do replace what is alluded to with your own experiences, and your own cultural relativity. Best of all, enjoy it.

http://plaza.ufl.edu/akathy/%281982%29%2...lltown.pdf

[Stuart Rathbone]

@Gwyl
yeah, maybe...I certainly don't have a clear vision of the past, the evidence is slippy and ambiguous at best, and there are always more things we don't know than do. It's not so much the views of different archaeologists that I'm finding fault wit

[Unitof1]

A sentence doesn't need 9 or 10 clauses, it needs to be 3 separate sentences.

The next thing I'm going to work on is a piece on Neolithic houses that should demonstrate why i think this has now got out of control, but it will take a little while for me to pull that together.

For instance I would like to see better use of punctuation.

are these neolithic houses going to be of ill repute?