5th March 2008, 03:23 PM
Hi,
You say:
"I think that development is being unfairly used by the state in this environment or rather the state is burying its head behind development"
So in other words because farmers cause more damage than developers (who are building for profit) the latter should not have to pay for their impact on archaeology.
You say:
"I think that state archaeologists should be kept away from them for about fifty years and then we should go and see if they have forgiven archaeology for letting the state take control."
hate to tell you this but it is Natural England who designed the scheme not archaeologists, even so schemes can require that fields are placed under restrictive uses because of archaeology.
You say:
"Cropmarks came to the surface as a result of the active agricultural erosion of these sites mapped mostly since the second world war and that some archaeologists made a business of imagining that the archaeology was still there is akin to ecologists plotting the position of dead fish floating on a poisoned pond and pretending that indicated the location of a living population and ignoring the exponential increase of the poison -something that the metal detectorists have not done and their multiplication is probably the best charted as an affect of the catastrophic erosion. Maybe we should follow suit?Water Newton every field.."
Which makes no sense in terms of archaeological methodology and only reveals your lack of knowledge concerning site assessment and appraisal. Of course archaeologists are aware of taphonomy (site formation processes) and indeed basic recoding and interpretation tries to address those issues. Site assessment presumes that the known only represents a sample and we are well aware of the limitations of the data set.
What you have done here is made an incorrect analogy by making up circumstances that do not exist.
You said:
I think that future generations will be incredulous that archaeologists did not try to grab any of it in any way before it went and will be grateful for the activity of the metal detectorists.
I would agree if metal detectorist recorded their finds with as detailed a location as possible (at least into ten meter grids) and then published the material and placed it on the HER and donated all finds to local museum. However, that is not the norm with even the PAS statistics showing that not to be the case.
You said:
"So you need to cut some of it out. Make a consideration of archaeology the default on the 2000 planning applications and charge with profit the DTI and the utilities for all of your time spent on their schemes and don't read the archaeology reports."
Again showing your ignorance of the reality, you can't put a condition of planning permission that isn't integral to granting that permission. Also it is planning authorities which control planning not archaeological curators we advise, and if all we did was advise that every application was conditioned the authority would refuse to accept the advise, applicants would complain to the ombudsman and central government would lower the funding to the LPA. We already charge the DTI, utilities don't have to pay its that negotiation skill us curators apply that you are so happy and quick to dismiss.
As for not reading the reports, I don't think I even need to respond to such a half-baked comment.
You said
" think the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable. I mainly see regulatory mechanisms as restrictive and inadequate in this environment."
Are you perhaps George Bush or one of his administration? you see only private business or some other non-public body as the solution? Yes isn't it terrible when local government curators make developers excavate medieval cemeteries before the JCB's tear them up, if I was king I'd make sure that a few quick sweeps with a metal detector were all that archaeologists were allowed to do.
Also lets apply you idea to natural environment, I know there aren't many tigers left so instead of learning about their environment and behaviour through systematic study, no, lets just shoot them and keep their skins after all the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable
Steven
You say:
"I think that development is being unfairly used by the state in this environment or rather the state is burying its head behind development"
So in other words because farmers cause more damage than developers (who are building for profit) the latter should not have to pay for their impact on archaeology.
You say:
"I think that state archaeologists should be kept away from them for about fifty years and then we should go and see if they have forgiven archaeology for letting the state take control."
hate to tell you this but it is Natural England who designed the scheme not archaeologists, even so schemes can require that fields are placed under restrictive uses because of archaeology.
You say:
"Cropmarks came to the surface as a result of the active agricultural erosion of these sites mapped mostly since the second world war and that some archaeologists made a business of imagining that the archaeology was still there is akin to ecologists plotting the position of dead fish floating on a poisoned pond and pretending that indicated the location of a living population and ignoring the exponential increase of the poison -something that the metal detectorists have not done and their multiplication is probably the best charted as an affect of the catastrophic erosion. Maybe we should follow suit?Water Newton every field.."
Which makes no sense in terms of archaeological methodology and only reveals your lack of knowledge concerning site assessment and appraisal. Of course archaeologists are aware of taphonomy (site formation processes) and indeed basic recoding and interpretation tries to address those issues. Site assessment presumes that the known only represents a sample and we are well aware of the limitations of the data set.
What you have done here is made an incorrect analogy by making up circumstances that do not exist.
You said:
I think that future generations will be incredulous that archaeologists did not try to grab any of it in any way before it went and will be grateful for the activity of the metal detectorists.
I would agree if metal detectorist recorded their finds with as detailed a location as possible (at least into ten meter grids) and then published the material and placed it on the HER and donated all finds to local museum. However, that is not the norm with even the PAS statistics showing that not to be the case.
You said:
"So you need to cut some of it out. Make a consideration of archaeology the default on the 2000 planning applications and charge with profit the DTI and the utilities for all of your time spent on their schemes and don't read the archaeology reports."
Again showing your ignorance of the reality, you can't put a condition of planning permission that isn't integral to granting that permission. Also it is planning authorities which control planning not archaeological curators we advise, and if all we did was advise that every application was conditioned the authority would refuse to accept the advise, applicants would complain to the ombudsman and central government would lower the funding to the LPA. We already charge the DTI, utilities don't have to pay its that negotiation skill us curators apply that you are so happy and quick to dismiss.
As for not reading the reports, I don't think I even need to respond to such a half-baked comment.
You said
" think the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable. I mainly see regulatory mechanisms as restrictive and inadequate in this environment."
Are you perhaps George Bush or one of his administration? you see only private business or some other non-public body as the solution? Yes isn't it terrible when local government curators make developers excavate medieval cemeteries before the JCB's tear them up, if I was king I'd make sure that a few quick sweeps with a metal detector were all that archaeologists were allowed to do.
Also lets apply you idea to natural environment, I know there aren't many tigers left so instead of learning about their environment and behaviour through systematic study, no, lets just shoot them and keep their skins after all the rate of extinction makes any and all methods of rescue applicable
Steven