CBA Community Archaeology Report

[RedEarth]

To throw a slight spanner in all this, what happens on commercially confidential projects (which covers an awful lot of the consultancy work we do), would 'community participants' have to have their memories wiped afterwards?

And what happens with potentially contentious projects - new runway, new bypass, perhaps not particuarly popular with the community. Again I mentioned this on a previous thread but was again accused of being a precious archaeologist who doesn't want the public getting involved. The whole issue does come down to ownership - there is an idea that in order for people to engage with their past through archaeology they should be enabled to get their hands on stuff, ideally on site. That's fine, but we don't encourage people to have a go at conserving medieval documents in order to engage with their past. How about allowing them to run EH properties for a week? What about allowing restoration of important art works as a means of the public engaging with art? You see how low down the skills ladder archaeology is perceived. For some reason archaeology is now perceived as something to be physically taken part in order to engage with it rather than just engaging with the results. Again, that's fine and perfectly sensible to a limited extent, it just seems at risk of becoming all pervasive. People didn't used to think like this though did they? I'm sure it's a post New Labour concept and, as I said before, it smacks of tokenism sometimes - find the money to enable 'the public' to engage with archaeology on the ground, while at the same time fail to invest in museums, education, improving the skill set of those actually supposedly trained in archaeology in the first place. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it!

[Jack]

Yeah right on. On one side I hate the idea of unskilled enthusiast diggers getting their mitts on sensitive and important archaeological remains without proper supervision (one to one I would say). After all aren't we supposed to be preserving in-situ? It seems from my very little experience of training/enthusiast/amature excavations that it is entirely dependant on how sharp or bothered the person running it is whether vital information is destroyed or made up.

To follow on fro RedEarth, you wouldn't let an untrained pilot loose on commercial flights.......nor would the scientific community take a physics paper claiming cold fusion seriously if it was published by enthusiasts!

However, it IS important that the information is disseminated to the general public as thats what we are doing, isn't it?

[Unitof1]

totally agree redearth except if the public actually owns the land then it gets to do what it wants with it.

I'm sure it's a post New Labour concept

Its as old as the CBA

possibly

http://www.britarch.ac.uk/cba/history

maybe 1995-8

this is new

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/SIR...R_09_E.PDF

you could compare their aims with their memorandum

http://www.britarch.ac.uk/cba/memorandum

you will notice that they changed their name by adding a THE

presumably that made it stick out a bit

[Dinosaur]

care to give theoretical scenario of this spanner

As an example, farmer wants to build houses on his field, takes advice and pays to have some geophysics done before applying for planning. Oops, geophys shows half a Roman town, so he quietly shelves the development plan. The intellectual rights to the geophys are his, he's paid for them and he's going to sue anyone who makes them public....might significantly lower the value of the land, plus b***er-up any plans for developing adjacent bits of land....

[Unitof1]

so whats the problem. Not sure where the 'community participants' come in all this.

I would look past the person being a farmer and find out if they were the landowner. It is the landowners archaeology and copyright.

In the oil industry the “landowner” would hire a geophysics company signed to confidentiality and then to make extra sure in most cases you would insist that the geophysics company gives the raw data without looking at it, other than for quality control purposes, to independent geological interpreters also signed up to confidentiality and anti-insider trader agreements . If you still didn’t trust them you would take any global positioning data out of the data set before giving it to the interpreters.
But then that’s geophysics which isn’t really any good for archaeology is it.

The ifa codes have got

1.10 A member shall not reveal confidential information unless required by law; nor use confidential or privileged information to his/her own advantage or that of a third person.

Unfortunately you can find contradictions to the rule 1.10

2.1 A member shall strive to conserve archaeological sites and material as a resource for study and enjoyment now and in the future and shall encourage others to do the same. Where such conservation is not possible he/she shall seek to ensure the creation and maintenance of an adequate record through appropriate forms of research, recording and dissemination of results.

Or

4.1 A member shall communicate and cooperate with colleagues having common archaeological interests and give due respect to colleagues’ interests in, and rights to information about sites, areas, collections or data where there is a shared field of concern, whether active or potentially so.

4.2 A member shall accurately and without undue delay prepare and properly disseminate an appropriate record of work done under his/her control.

And others

1.10 I think allows confidentiality
2.1 So you create a record the argument would be whether giving that record to the landowner was adequate dissemination. I would suggest that it is, given 1.10.
4.1Whats a colleague and whats having a common archaeological interest mean in this situation?
4.2 see 2.1

maybe at the outset you would inform the client of
4.4 A member is responsible for the analysis and publication of data derived from projects under his/her control. While The member exercises this responsibility he/she shall enjoy consequent rights of primacy. However, failure to prepare or publish the results within 10 years of completion of the fieldwork shall be construed as a waiver of such rights, unless such failure can reasonably be attributed to circumstances beyond the member’s control.

I could prepare the results but what does “prepare or publish” mean and there would only be an attack on my primacy if it was known that I had undertaken an evaluation see 1.10.

The landowner might point out that a lot of copyright is now moving to seventy years or more after death of the author..


Obviously the landowner has only your opinion of the value of their archaeological assets. This is where it gets interesting. Unfortunately have been put on the naughty chair on this forum for what I tell my clients about costs.

Heres a scenario for you

You are a landowner and one day an archaeologist requests to go on your land in order to undertake an evaluation for a potential pipeline, road scheme or runway EIA. What do you do to maximise the amount of money spent on the archaeological evaluation.?

[Comarch]

1. I don't want to come on your site. Please get on with your business of making money from archaeology through your commercial units. Nobody will bother you. Nobody is going to ruin your archaeology or dig it all up, or do you out of a job, or molest your partner and eat your babies. All those points on ownership are thus invalid. MoLA et al have community projects and are happy to do so and still carry on with their other business.
2. Is it beyond the wit of archaeological humanity to try sort something out and let other people, who do not want to be paid or have a job, to connect, in whichever way they choose, in a responsible way, with their past?
3. Do you, Unitof1, only work for developers that you like and then take their money? [shady religious organisations wanting to take over the world! shades of Dan Brown]
4. Get used to it - CA is not going away.

[kevin wooldridge]

....For some reason archaeology is now perceived as something to be physically taken part in order to engage with it rather than just engaging with the results. Again, that's fine and perfectly sensible to a limited extent, it just seems at risk of becoming all pervasive. People didn't used to think like this though did they? I'm sure it's a post New Labour concept and, as I said before, it smacks of tokenism sometimes - find the money to enable 'the public' to engage with archaeology on the ground, while at the same time fail to invest in museums, education, improving the skill set of those actually supposedly trained in archaeology in the first place. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it!

Not quite sure what time period 'post-New Labour' refers to - some date since the 6th May.....

....It is becoming increasingly clear to me that all undergraduate students of archaeology should be compelled to sit a course on the 'History of Archaeological Practice' - some of the misconceptions spouted on BAJR sometimes make me think that it is a sorely understudied subject.

For the matter of record. The use of non-professionals in UK archaeology dates back to the 19th century and possibly earlier. I wont go into too many details here but would mention General Lane-Fox and the agricultural labourers of Cranborne Chase, later Basil Brown at Sutton Hoo, later still Professor Grimes and the London Excavation Committee, later still the Manpower Services Commission and similar schemes....all have produced competent, principled and as far as I am concerned totally 'professional' archaeologists...from non-graduated, community based archaeological employment schemes. Some of whom (myself and David Connolly for example) are still alive and kicking close on 30 years after getting our break.....probably one which without community based archaeology we would never have got a sniff of the creosote let alone a foot in the door..... I kind of find it a little offensive that I at least would be one of those folk whom Jack would hate to see 'getting their mitts on sensitive and importantarchaeological remains'.....what would make me less worthy than an undergraduate with no field experience?

Secondly I recommend anyone who believes that the IfA was set up to benefit solely commercial archaeologists to refer to the signatarees to the first articles of Association of the IfA. The 19 names include the then head of the CBA, several county archaeologists, a whole lot of academics....but I don't see the name of a single commercial archaeologist. Isn't much of the criticism pointed at the IfA on this thread, a case of twisting the evidence to support a baseless theory. The IfA principles, codes, guidleines and standards are applicable across the board in UK archaeology. Thats what they were originally drafted to do by a cross section representing amateur, academic and professional archaeologists.

http://www.archaeologists.net/modules/ic...memart.pdf

[Unitof1]

MoLA et al have community projects and are happy to do so and still carry on with their other business.

Who are molas, the population of the city of london is what? I bet not a single resident of the city of London goes on moolases community projects. ba boo

com your the first CA I have ever met

thats right kev out of amuteeurs grow professionals...whats your point. I can do ammuterer if you want. Those signortores were attempting to create something better. I suggest that there is a lot of evidence that its failed....whats a 19th century professional..

The use of non-professionals in UK archaeology dates back to the 19th century and possibly earlier

the use by whom? ifa member?

[Unitof1]

http://www.archaeologists.net/module...des/memart.pdf

this has the word Field in the title

[Unitof1]

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e) to invite, conduct and support the exhibition of, and to

exhibit at meetings of the Institute or elsewhere, any new,
improved or other equipment, apparatus, plans, drawings
or models and any experiments or demonstrations
calculated to advance the techniques and practice of

archaeology

a public: this is the latest tool used by a CA
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