How should British Archaeology be run

[Unitof1]

this is an easy one-get rid of curators.

[Jack]

this is an easy one-get rid of curators.

But.........
get rid of curators=get rid of archaeology.

get rid of archaeology=irrecoverable loss of information (barring time travel)

Result is our past is made up to suit the political aims of those funding it.

[Unitof1]

curators stop archaeologists doing archaeology by having to have an approval system scheme of works. We want to "consider" all applications not have some none archaeologist twit filter out which ones need approval and then what limited work is allowed to be done.

just had huge dayjarvue in which hosty edits this to stop the start of the everlasting rant.

Jack cant imagine a world without curators, whos going to tell Jack that there is no work

[P Prentice]

so in unitland where we all compete to evaluate every single planning application and we all tender ?1 because the planning authority dosent know the diff - how many of us would have a job unit

[Unitof1]

well plenty of "us" would not have a job but those who can win the so called ?1 tender and turn it into more would win. We would have a lot more potential clients so heres an argument, lets say I have a client who comes to me with what looks like a topsoil strip and watching brief currently I have to find out if that is what is wanted from the bloody **** curator who as soon as they say yes the so called authority wants a watching brief of a topsoil strip that is what I am stuck with. I get no oppertunity to develope anything other than the what the curator wants. Most of the time in that situation I would prefer to not be on the clients site with their builders doing what they want I would prefer to do an evaluation well infront of any development. Why should I develope some community archaeology scheme within the set up or see if I can squeeze some cash for a radiocarbon date out of the client which obviously would cost a bit more. No cant do that because the stupid curator system sets the crap standard and us archaeologists have to be seen to find the crap lowest cost standard for the pretend tender because the curator sole purpose is to make sure that us cowboy archaeologists arnt seen to rip the client off using the curators authority.

[P Prentice]

lets say i go and see your client and say i can do half the job for half the price and he always sez yes

[trowelfodder]

Hmmm, whilst I do understand at least partially where Unit is coming from I would hate to see the loss of our Curatorial staff. Yes it can be frustrating sometimes but often a discussion about methodology and some flexability on all parts can resolve difficult situations. If there is a reason why you would prefer to do/advise something different then why not talk to the curator about it when you are discussing the methodology you need to submit?

If it were not for archaeological planning going through applications placing conditions and overseeing the work done how would any archaeology happen?

[barkingdigger]

Forgive me for seeming dim here, but with no curators to hold developers to account regarding archaeological conditions, won't those self-same developers just cut out the middle-Unitof1 and slap houses through the irreplaceable archaeological resource with impunity? Seems to me getting rid of curators is a career-suicide note for anyone hoping to earn a living off developers.

Now that's not to say that some curators don't need major re-education, but that's a separate problem...

[Unitof1]

as I understand it we dont have it in statutory law but we do have the "consideration" of archaeology hanging off regulations related to planning law and international and EU treaties. Basically anybody undertaking development is supposed to "consider" the archaeology that might be affected by their development. As far as I see it they should come to an archaeologist and get advice/consideration. That advice could be no further work recommended and I would like to be paid for that advice. This advice should then be presented to the autherising authority before the granting of permission. This is not what happens. What happens is that the authorising authorities tell the developer what consideration that they would like and quite often it is after/or a condition of the planning permission having been granted. In most cases of development no archaeological consideration is considered to be required or if the permission has been granted the archaeologist has been presented with a fait ocomeplee and by which time you are basically going through the motions of established practise and standards where the only inventiveness that you have will be some very inadequate contingancy which you probably negotiated away in the tender unless you happen to land some public sector financed gravey train job

I would rather be in the situation that the developer has to gamble that my advice will satisfy the granting of the permission. Yes the authorising authority might like to pay for some advice or get free advice about the archaeological condition through the right of the public and other archaeologists to appeal about the applicaction within the application process. This system has been shown to work in cases where objectors have used the objection system to raise all manner of objections not only archaeology.

[P Prentice]

a planning authority pays a curator it has appointed or engaged by due process to advise on its behalf and will normally back that curator through the planning process because it trusts that curator works for the best interest of the authority. if a developer employs a charlatan archaeologist to provide that authority with information or advice and that authority has to rely on other charlatan archaeologists to call into question that information or advice it would still have to pay a recognised archaeologist to determine if that information or advice was in the best interests of that authority. much easier to have a pet curator and avoid expensive law suits