Evaluating urban sites

[Unitof1]

either your aspirations are very low or the curators your way are paid in body parts...

are they charging VAT?

[GnomeKing]

[quote=fieldworker].

First, does this happen and how frequently do curators get inadequate urban eval reports as a result? PROBALY TOO OFTEN, IF ANYBODY HAD THE TIME TO THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATE...

Second, if this happens with frequency, doesn't it mean there is an in-built, commercially driven bias against thorough, sequential excavation for urban evals, YES

Are we all just working in the dark, hoping we'll hit the right balance (and perhaps rarely doing so?)? PROBABLY

Is this how a profession should be working? NO



there may have been incompetent curators, there certainly are under resourced good ones....the point is not the person but the post...

steven has outlined how (properly resourced and staffed) local government authorities can assist with planning and help maintain high standards of professionalism in commercial archaeology

"to paraphrase, you [Dinosaur] advise developers to pay you to tell them how much you will charge to carry out works that you've defined the extent of and the need for" (Trainedchimp)

this is not good....reality is what we make it...some things take more than a single lifetime to achieve....it is not futile to resist accepting 'realities' that we find unacceptable...it is the resistance, and not the outcome, that defines us as persons and human beings

"Between snipe and clam
the fight doesn't stop
Both fall into
the fisherman's hands"

There may be many/too many more holes to dig - we might even have too much faith in their importance or our ability to 'understand' them;

"A thousand years
a million years
darkness all over-
Stuffs every gutter
fills every valley
- no one understands"

everyone is free to practice thier own art - but creative as it is, archaeology is an Investigative Science of humanity - at least as defined by its reliance on Physical Evidence,Verifiable Documentation, Definable Methodologies, and particularly by the impact of the Objective Results of one investigation upon the Objective Results of others....we rely on Scientifically defined 'Universal' Chronologies, which themselves are predicated on archaeological field data of high Integrity.....

These are 'realities' about the state of archaeological Knowledge - we have a choice as to our aspirations for the remains entrusted to us...

if we have any real interest in our 'results', then we would be wise to ensure the results of others are not spurious or partial, since no archaeological site can be understood in isolation...

we would not expect other professions to control standards without third party representation of public interests - commercial archaeology can not be allowed to set its own briefs
- local government heritage authorities must be Strengthened as part of 'professionalising' the profession........(probably a new thread, whoops, way off from original)

[Unitof1]

i would suggest buyer beware, i dont see third parties controlling other professions. If the nation state wants to justify its self through archaeology it should go and dig its own briefs, not ride on the back of my perculiar view of the past. You a christian or something?

[GnomeKing]

something, or nothing, or worse

"god hates book lerners"

where there are professions with implications for the public - and there is no 'public' representation - i see problems...

i see problems in 'regulated' industries/professions also - because capitalists fight hard against regulation when it impacts personal profit, and because 'public' representation is too weak....

[Unitof1]

profit only comes after the price of the ferry is paid

[Dinosaur]

I don't quite understand. The developer knows there is an archaeological potential for this land, but has decided not to develop. Fair enough...but why does this need to be kept a secret? Surely he should be congratulated for his alturism....

On the other hand he might want to use the land sometime in the future for, oh, say, growing spuds or some similarly destructive agricultural activity (ploughing competitions aren't good for archaeology by the way), no planning permission required but might conflict with any management agreement accompanying scheduling? Or maybe he might want to sell the land to a potential developer (its in a prime 10-houses location), not really his problem if the new owner then commissions some geophys...shocking but all too likely...

[vulpes]

Not really his problem Dinosaur? Surely that would be criminal fraud and you or your company could be implicated too. Ethical? Hardly.

[kevin wooldridge]

Why would the land be scheduled if no-one knows what is there? ......unimproved farmland lacking planning permission hardly rates as an investment these days....plus of course as Vulpes suggests failure to disclose when in possession of knowledge that might affect the value of a potential purchase is fraud in anyone's book.

[Oxbeast]

risk of stepping into an active flame zone...

No, it would not be fraud. There is no contract between you (the archaeologist) and any future potential purchaser of the land. your contract is likely to contain confidentiality contracts, most people like land surveyors have these. Also, caveat emptor. If you think that it is wrong for a client to decide whether or not to make their information public when there is no planning application, then don't do pre-determination work.

I agree that a 'blank' field is unlikely to be scheduled, the land might well be part of a management scheme, such as Natural England's environemntal stewardship schemes.

[GnomeKing]

failure to disclose non-the-less, and not at all ethical, especially if an archaeologist is aware that archaeology is being damaged....