Archaeology - can you fix it?

[Jack]

Not got any particular axe to grind......but was musing (after reading the green party's policies, bizarrely)......if I was given ultimate power, either through being prime minister or a dictator etc, how would I solve the problems facing the archaeological 'industry' at the moment......both in the short term and the long run.

I'd be fascinated at people's opinions.....I know this may cause heated debate and opposing opinions but I think it would be useful if people could be honest and critical without name-calling...though feel free to lay into me as much as you want...I don't mind }

oh, and I'm still mulling over my ideas....got nothing solid yet.....but I'm inclined towards archaeology for profit is good (ducks) provided the industry is properly legislated and monitored. So to enact this, the destruction of important archaeological remains would have to be made a criminal act (like for ecology), and county councils should be able to impose fines for such to be properly policed/enforced. It goes without saying then that the requirement for a council to do so needs to be legislated too.

Also archaeologists should be licensed (which should included paying for the license and some kind of proof of aptitude), though this license should include the permission/provision to train other unlicensed, inexperienced or volunteer staff.

[Wax]

Agree with most of Jack's points and would extend the licence to include universities and academics as should the proof of aptitude. I do wondered how many of those who teach archaeology are actually experienced enough in the commercial aspects to be training the next generation of commercial operatives?

[kevin wooldridge]

1) Appoint a single body responsible for all UK archaeology
2) Remove archaeological decision making from local authority control and vest it in new national body
3) Prohibit commercial archaeological concerns from undertaking evaluation or excavation
4) Guarantee 50% of appointees to permanent archaeological positions are women
5) All archaeologists in supervisory, consultancy or specialist positions to be licenced
6) Post graduate or professional qualifications mandatory for licensed archaeologists

[P Prentice]

1) Appoint a single body responsible for all UK archaeology with local experts on secondment to local authority planning departments.
2) All archaeologists to be licenced and graded for competency according to their skills and experience (all competency to be tested)
3) Post graduate or professional qualifications mandatory for licensed archaeologists
4) All reports for every stage of work published as open access on WWW
5) All sites belong to the nation (so all finds belong to the nation)

[Dinosaur]

Post graduate or professional qualifications mandatory for licensed archaeologists

Have you actually read many UK archaeological PhD theses? A significant proportion are garbage! I'd imagine an awful lot of MA/BSc archaeological qualifications are similarly far removed from reality, although luckily the work done rarely gets published :face-stir:


I'll stick with my BA thanks

[Sith]

..the destruction of important archaeological remains would have to be made a criminal act (like for ecology)..

<Cough!> The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 (the primary legislation relating to Scheduled Monuments, which are by definition nationally important) makes damaging a Scheduled Monument a criminal offence punishable by a sentence of up to six months and a fine. It's just a shame so few convictions are brought.

Have you actually read many UK archaeological PhD theses? A significant proportion are garbage! I'd imagine an awful lot of MA/BSc archaeological qualifications are similarly far removed from reality, although luckily the work done rarely gets published :face-stir:


I'll stick with my BA thanks

I agree entirely. I don't understand the obsession that more and more qualifications make people better at their jobs. This doesn't just apply to archaeology; it sometimes seems like you'd need at least an MA in waste management to become a bin man.

[Oxbeast]

I'll stick with my BA thanks

@ Dinosaur...But you're always saying that your BA was pointless and you didn't learn anything useful....

@Wax

Agree with most of Jack's points and would extend the licence to include universities and academics as should the proof of aptitude. I do wondered how many of those who teach archaeology are actually experienced enough in the commercial aspects to be training the next generation of commercial operatives?

But academics don't think that it's their job to train the new generation of commercial operatives. Possibly with a couple of exceptions. So why would they put work into a licensing scheme that would not link to the REF and their department's financial stability?

But I think the ideas about a national body advising on planning and open access publishing are good ones. To some extent, EH and the other bodies do advise nationally on planning, but only at a strategic level or in special or complex cases. What may also be useful is for a requirement for local planners to show due regard to this advice.

[gwyl]

3) Prohibit commercial archaeological concerns from undertaking evaluation or excavation

Why, and who do you envisage carrying out any archaeological work?
After all elsewhere in Europe all archaeology is still undertaken as commercial work, even if the results are published as academic studies, and the contracting bodies are universities, county museum services etc. funnily enough no local amateur societies to my knowledge! & in some places expressly forbidden from investigations without an academic agenda and steering committee. Perhaps a codicil, that all archaeological work be published in an appropriate place, defined by the monitoring archaeological body, at an appropriate level. A sort of Level 1 to Level 5 scale that goes from a note in CBA & County Journal or whatever to all-dancing, multimedia website, monograph blahblahblah

But as for the rest, can't disagree. Although a codicil to the appropriately qualified BA/MA/PhD thing; were the skills passport to be effective, then complementary academic courses could furnish a passport, so that a more career-practice route could run in tandem with a more solidly academic route; given that the point has also been made that academics don't perceive their role to be to make archaeologists, then graduates are less field-staff than trainee managers, and by that account while not necessarily unable to dig, site-excavation is not their primary role - rather managing it is. those that have come up through excavation (as i suspect will happen, again, over the coming decade or so) ought to be able to hop from field to desk (and management & accountability, which is basically what the licence enshrines) so long as they can demonstrate capabilities, practical and academic, within the parameters of the postulated licence. but it's only a thought.

[Doug]

4) Guarantee 50% of appointees to permanent archaeological positions are women

Some good news on that front- archaeologists now have equal number of women working as the rest of the UK workforce. Not 50% as many women still choose to raise children (2x fulltime job but not considered part of the workforce- no comment). top management positions still tend to be male dominated but once that generation retires the next is actually women majority. Actually, archaeologists under 40 is women majority.

[Jack]

1) Appoint a single body responsible for all UK archaeology
2) Remove archaeological decision making from local authority control and vest it in new national body
3) Prohibit commercial archaeological concerns from undertaking evaluation or excavation
4) Guarantee 50% of appointees to permanent archaeological positions are women
5) All archaeologists in supervisory, consultancy or specialist positions to be licenced
6) Post graduate or professional qualifications mandatory for licensed archaeologists

Interesting, Kevin, though....

isn't 4) discriminatory? I can't see how this could be achieved what if less women want to be archaeologists than men? Surely there should just be equal opportunities for both? Just an opinion though.

Also 2)...why not have properly trained and resourced local authority representatives making decisions?

and 3).. I just don't understand why you think commercial 'concerns' shouldn't do evaluation or excavation? Could you explain more? Do you mean the work should be done by unpaid volunteers? Or do you mean Archaeological excavation should be state ran?

I completely agree on 6 though...as long as the qualifications are fit for purpose of course! Though I would also lean towards that (as mentioned already) something like the skills passport scheme or some other form of practical-peer-review-qualification is needed.