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Quote:The Palestinian project on another BAJR thread sounds fantastic but it is directed to a Facebook page indicating it will be instigated by a final year student! A case of the one eyed woman being Queen in the land of the blind? I hope not. Hopefully there are professional archaeologists in the territories who will resist being patronised and told how to dig the British way.
It is / was a worry for me too. however, as long as limitations are accepted and assistance given then this could go well. I would be more worried if this initiative was fully led by Emma, but await to see more ... I'll give it a boost, as few and far are people willing to do something positive. (take note mr Unit)
I see that given the chance to comment on my project he would rather not... which is a shame, as here I am, able to answer any question...
I know of several projects run by directors (who are in fact students) but there we have an ego issue rather than a com arch issue.
A well run project involves people and brings the various strands together, it is not an ego cruise for an individual and their fweinds.
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25th May 2010, 05:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 25th May 2010, 05:25 PM by Unitof1.)
Hello hosty I notice that the heritage logo sign in two picture in the document that you put up and that the lottry logo is displayed on the first page. How mush monies did the project get from the lottery and how did this funding come about.
Quote:The Palestinian project on another BAJR thread sounds fantastic
yes it does
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http://www.hlf.org.uk/ourproject/Pages/T...ndDig.aspx
All the info you need... no secrets there.
As to your possible comment on the Palestinian Project.. I wish there were more people like her and less like you.
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Unitof1 Wrote:Hello hosty I notice that the heritage logo sign in two picture in the document that you put up and that the lottry logo is displayed on the first page. How mush monies did the project get from the lottery and how did this funding come about.
yes it does
This is sad and not even funny. This discussion needs to be had but if this is the result I'm out'a'here.
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I have to agree... and it saddens me greatly... sometimes I wonder why we bother to try and have a serious discussion... if I was watching this I would be laughing at us ...
So far I have seen nothing to change my views on Community Archaeology - most comment seems to be ill-informed and baffling.
Austin Ainsworth
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BAJR Wrote:I have to agree... and it saddens me greatly... sometimes I wonder why we bother to try and have a serious discussion... if I was watching this I would be laughing at us ...
So far I have seen nothing to change my views on Community Archaeology - most comment seems to be ill-informed and baffling.
That's why I couldn't be bothered to comment, some fantastic posts by Comarch, unfortunately surrounded by some of the most ill-informed comments I've ever read on the forum.
@ Comarch: I'm organising a seminar to be held in Gloucester in September on new approaches to heritage/archaeological engagement with marginalised communities. If you're interested send me a PM with an email address and I'll put you on the delegate list.
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I don't think you are alone their Austin! I may get stricter with this forum, as it is not supposed to be a place for people to warble and vent without positive action. On the bright side you and Comarch connected..!
I will email Suzi as well
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Slightly distressed by how this discussion has turned into a tit for tat round of slagging after what seemed like some reasonably valid points at the beginning, but it seemed to have been driven off a cliff some time ago partly by Herr Unit (although if you will rise to his perverse posts then what do you expect?) However, it does now seem to be largely dominated by the 'community archaeology is great and anyone who questions it is clearly evil' side of the argument! There would seem to be some element of vested interests coming into play on both sides and it is difficult for those not directly involved in CA to come up with valid critical points from the outside. Commercial archaeologists can't win - sneered at by academics for not being research orientated enough and producing results that are not 'easily accessible' and criticised by CAs for not engaging with the public enough and producing more smiley faces.
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I seem to recall that the ifa somewhere guestimated that a desktop roughly cost ?750 and an evaluation ?7500. These expenses are predominantly for labour Those desktops and evaluations should have standards and an adherence to those standards can be seen as a restrictive practise or an exclusion practise to a profession. Doctors don?t allow you to write their proscriptions, civil engineer don?t allow you to sign their calculations off, I being into copyright don?t think that a professional archaeologist should allow someone else to fill in their context sheets. I also don?t think that archaeology should exist without an archaeologists and I know that that is not a standard argument. Now as a professional archaeologists I can understand that if I can get someone to do my desktop or evaluation for less but charge the client more, that somewhere in between I am supposed to make a living. I take this as a basis of being a professional archaeologist but it is also the basis of being a cowboy. The commercial archaeology system set up in this country is based on the profession being monitored by professional curators who insist on wsi for every minute action undertaken in the name of archaeology presumably because all archaeologists are one job away from bringing the facade of archaeology into disrepute..
I know that to attempt to make a living at archaeology is sad and unfortunately I cant self fund it. Now to make a living you might have to dress being an archaeologist up a bit and call your self a community archaeologist particularly if funds have appeared from somewhere which will not fund an archaeologists who might be undertaking archaeology as a living as this might be interpreted as gain. After tax payers monies the dodgiest money there is comes from gambling. Now we all know that the british museum, famous curators of the elgin marbles, was founded on lottery monies but eventually it was seem that lotteries were morally corrupt. Then after a while it was found to be alright although only under proscription. Now what dodgy monies like to be seen as is pillars of the community, they particularly like their pictures taken with the community and particularly the children. Not that that matters. What matters to me is the sense of authorship or if you like authority which is what an archaeologist should give to archaeology and to tell the truth I think that that authority should be paramount in the archive of any archaeological project. ?.which is hard to see through a report/publicity document which might be also trying to secure future funding.
Not driving in any particular direction but there is a difference between a project with a named responsible archaeologist and one where the authority is obscured. + add the word professional to archaeologist rather than community. ?6000 I might try some of that.
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Fair points there Red.. and hopefully gets this back on track...
To answer quickly.. I think there has been a dislocation (which did not exist before) between CA and Commercial ... it does have noteable exceptions. The discussion should hinge around the quality of work and the benefits. One large benefit is the potential to act as training grounds for archaeologists... after all... one 'issue' is that archaeologists don't have a chance to train... with well supported CA projects, this can be overcome. I have seen some shocking CA and some exceptional CA... the question remains.. how to keep the momentum and to keep quality high... it needs a re-engagement between both.. and I hope that the CBA and Archa Scotland will help ...
