when was the last time you read an archaeological report from cover to cover?

[P Prentice]

Bad press, current social perception, lack of interest from industry/governments.

The last is coz we don't produce much that can be marketed on a scale that produces mass profit or saves the planet/ human race.

Need to find that stargate, or find a site on mars that proves we are all aliens or summit - especially if its got alien weapons on it. Then all of a sudden every corner of industry/governments would be desperate to have archaeologists and the funding would pour in.

Take climatology as an example. Poorly funded until the world was about to end.

Most people seem to still have social progressionism ingrained in their thinking.
By that I mean 'anything in the past isn't as good as what we have now and people in the past were less clever and less evolved than us.' Hence archaeology is just a luxury, or a hobby. Its 'interesting' but we can't learn anything new from it as it only relates to the past. Its not as important as bashing protons together, or measuring sea level for instance that relate to now and the future hence we can learn something new.

I think (but not sure) that social progressionism comes from Victorian (or maybe earlier) propaganda designed to make it ok to exploit 'less advanced' cultures throughout the world. Because they don't have all the shiny technologies that we have so they must be less evolved and more like we were in the ancient past; its our duty to 'educate' them in how to live proper and speed up their evolution.

But of course, it was just an excuse to exploit them and steal their resources. The reasoning seems to still linger though, although often at a more subliminal level.

so we should write better reports

[Wax]

If it is the end result of a programme of works it should be aimed at an intelligent 12 year old and if they wont read it you shouldn't have bothered[/QUOTE]

Ever tried writing for an intelligent 12 year old? Much more difficult than you might think as they will get p..... off if they have to read it accompanied by a dictionary.

[vulpes]

If it is the end result of a programme of works it should be aimed at an intelligent 12 year old and if they wont read it you shouldn't have bothered

I think you're getting confused with TV programmes here. Or possibly this forum which also appears to have succumbed to this craze for dumbing down :face-stir:

[RedEarth]

yes it do!! If they are used to inform a planning decision the only people who have to know what it sez dont need to read all that boring stuff

If it is the end result of a programme of works it should be aimed at an intelligent 12 year old and if they wont read it you shouldn't have bothered

I'm not sure I understand that answer.

Which parts of a typical report are you defining as boring? All of it? Some of it? The methodology might be a bit dull, even some of the results perhaps, but presumably not the discussiony/conclusiony bit? (unless absolutely nothing is found) All these bits have purpose within the report - you have to imagine someone reading it in 50 years time, or 1000 years time. How annoyed would they be if it was just a two page summary of the 'interesting' bits (as defined at the time) and nothing else.

Is your follow-up question going to be 'why bother with an archive' or 'why keep any of the finds'? If that's the attitude then why bother at all?

[P Prentice]

Which parts of a typical report are you defining as boring? All of it? Some of it? The methodology might be a bit dull, even some of the results perhaps, but presumably not the discussiony/conclusiony bit? (unless absolutely nothing is found) All these bits have purpose within the report - you have to imagine someone reading it in 50 years time, or 1000 years time. How annoyed would they be if it was just a two page summary of the 'interesting' bits (as defined at the time) and nothing else.

Is your follow-up question going to be 'why bother with an archive' or 'why keep any of the finds'? If that's the attitude then why bother at all?

if we are only writing this boring stuff for each other we wont have a future
our purpose needs to be more than maintaining employment in an indifferent world
why should everybody else pay for us if we cant give them anything they can see as either interesting or useful (calling punters dumb if they dont get it - wont cut it)
there has to be an appreciation that we cant keep churning out endless reports that nobody will ever read or we are doomed (i tell ya - doomed)

and as for archives - there is no future there for dead sure

[Dinosaur]

reading? thought it was all done using templates & cut and paste from old reports :face-stir:

Sadly around here we're forced to write real prose, from scratch, antiquated I know but does make for a better read (sometimes) :face-approve:

[P Prentice]

Sadly around here we're forced to write real prose, from scratch, antiquated I know but does make for a better read (sometimes) :face-approve:

post one and let's see

[Marcus Brody]

l (calling punters dumb if they dont get it - wont cut it)

But weren't you also advocating that reports should be written so that they could be understood by an educated 12-year-old? Isn't that just as patronising? I don't see why writing a report that's accessible and readable should automatically mean that it has to be pitched to appeal to teenagers. Yes, reports should be written to appeal to an appropriate audience (so that something for a school education pack would be markedly different to the report for the developer), but it's a bit patronising to assume that a publication intended for a broad adult audience should be written to what you assume is the lowest common denominator. Sure, cut down on the over-use of technical terms, or at least explain what they mean, but why shouldn't we acknowledge that people are a bit more intelligent than you give them credit for.

[kevin wooldridge]

Do PhD dissertations count as 'archaeological reports'? In which case.....

[vulpes]

....that would be a definite no Kevin. Most are 50% synthesis anyway. They do keep BAR in business though so they can't be all bad.