14th July 2008, 01:59 PM
Posted by Shadowjack, commenting on my previous post:
Under the old system, at least in some parts of the country, the kind of thing I described was standard practice, or even the best that could possibly be achieved with good-will and best efforts from everyone involved on the archaeological side. Often it was the result of deliberate decisions by curators, into which they were forced by the fact that their local authority bosses only gave them miniscule fieldwork budgets, or none at all.
The old system often was a monopoly or near-monopoly, as each unit had its traditional 'territory', poached on only by English Heritage on occasion or by the MSC (although most MSC schemes would actually be run by the local unit).
It was developer funding that enabled the huge expansion of the quantity of archaeological work done on development projects. A corollorary of developer funding is that they are allowed to pick their own contractor, hence competitive tendering. However, it also freed the curators to insist not only on more comprehensive investigation but investigation to a higher standard.
So, the post-PPG16 competitive system has not removed all the quality problems from archaeological practice, but overall it has been good for archaeological standards.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
Quote:quote:1man1deskUnfortunately, some of what I talked about previously probably does still occur. However, under the current system, it is the exception rather than the rule, and generally the result of something going badly wrong.
Nice post - put's the current into the historical perspective.
But (there's always a but!) not sure I wholly agree with you.
Doesn't some of what you say used to occur still occur?
Under the old system, at least in some parts of the country, the kind of thing I described was standard practice, or even the best that could possibly be achieved with good-will and best efforts from everyone involved on the archaeological side. Often it was the result of deliberate decisions by curators, into which they were forced by the fact that their local authority bosses only gave them miniscule fieldwork budgets, or none at all.
The old system often was a monopoly or near-monopoly, as each unit had its traditional 'territory', poached on only by English Heritage on occasion or by the MSC (although most MSC schemes would actually be run by the local unit).
It was developer funding that enabled the huge expansion of the quantity of archaeological work done on development projects. A corollorary of developer funding is that they are allowed to pick their own contractor, hence competitive tendering. However, it also freed the curators to insist not only on more comprehensive investigation but investigation to a higher standard.
So, the post-PPG16 competitive system has not removed all the quality problems from archaeological practice, but overall it has been good for archaeological standards.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
