Guest Post: Speaking up for Archaeology

In this special guest post, Dave Moore, Communications Officer of The Council for British Archaeology discusses the Council's important mission, and explains how you can get involved and receive a special offer for British Archaeology Magazine. 

"The Council for British Archaeology (CBA) has been the independent champion for archaeology in the UK for over 70 years, speaking up for archaeology in public debates and bringing the excitement of the subject to an increasingly large and enthusiastic audience including young people.

In fact it is hard to imagine archaeology in the UK today without the CBA. Since its founding in 1944, the CBA has led the way with ground breaking projects and innovative resources, sharing research, knowledge, and opening up archaeology to new generations and new audiences. Above all, the CBA and its partners have worked tirelessly to represent the interests of everyone who cares about the UK’s rich archaeology heritage and the future of our discipline.

The CBA’s campaigning role is more vital now than ever, with increasing threats to our archaeological heritage from development pressures and the effects of funding cuts on archaeology practice in the UK. Many archaeologists argue that we are at risk of losing all that we have gained over the past 70 years.

You can help us continue our vital programmes to safeguard the UK’s archaeology and provide Archaeology for All next year and in years to come by becoming a member of the CBA. In return our members receive British Archaeology Magazine 6 times per year, plus our regular newsletter and e-news, keeping you up to date with archaeology projects, events and campaigns. As a specialist interest group, we negotiate special offers for our members such as discounts on outdoor gear and archaeology publications. Most importantly, we offer great opportunities to experience archaeology through our networks, local CBA Groups and Young Archaeologists’ Clubs.

Maney subscribers also benefit from an extra copy of British Archaeology Magazine
 in your first year when you join the CBA (that’s 7 copies for the price of 6). To benefit from this special offer, join now online or call the CBA team on 01904 671 417 quoting 'Maney0315'. 

Find out more about how the CBA is supporting Britain’s archaeology at: www.archaeologymatters.org.uk"

Let's celebrate British archaeology: Yorkshire Archaeological Journal



Festival of Archaeology runs
every year in July

As many of you may be aware, Britain is currently in the throes of the Festival of Archaeology which runs between Saturday 13th and Sunday 28th July and celebrates British archaeology with a whole host of events up and down the country. This varies from a tour of Leicestershire Museums archaeology collections to excavating Alderney’s Roman fort in the Channel Islands.

So in this spirit I wanted to showcase some of the best research in British archaeology that the Maney Publishing archive has to offer and this article from the latest issue of Yorkshire Archaeological Journal does just that. "The Development of Archaeological Thought as Evidenced in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal" was written by John Collins and explores the role of the YAJ not only as a journal of record, but also as an innovator in the development of archaeological ideas such as landscape archaeology, aerial photography and open-area archaeology, as well as more traditional approaches, for instance tackling historical questions such as the Roman conquest of Britain. It deals with the changes of paradigm which affected both the types of fieldwork carried out and nature of interpretation in both a British and a European context. With the work of Raistrick on landscape history and of Beresford on deserted medieval villages, its publications had an impact far beyond the boundaries of the county. The Yorkshire Archaeological Society (YAS) has also acted as a meeting ground for the various institutions which have engaged in archaeology in the county, both professional and amateur.

The following is an excerpt from its introduction:
 

"At several times in the last 200 years Yorkshire has been at the forefront, pioneering new ideas in Archaeology, but equally it has absorbed many innovations from outside, and, though these are many and varied, over the long term two major sources can be identified. The earlier of these was from Scandinavia, more specifically Denmark, though some of this came via London where there has always been a strong Yorkshire involvement in the Society of Antiquaries and other national bodies (Giles 2006). The other influence of long-term significance was the University of Cambridge, in theoretical ideas and in the important role played by its graduates, starting in the 1930s, though local universities have been playing an increasing role in the last thirty years.

 

The YAS was founded
in 1863

The society was founded in the immediate aftermath of one of the most fundamental upheavals in the history of science, with the publication of Charles Lyell’s The Principles of Geology in 1830 and Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 1859, and the rejection of the biblical date for the creation of the world around 4004 bc. The new paradigm envisaged an open-ended date for the appearance of the world and the arrival of human beings on its surface, so its impact was huge not only on religious beliefs but in Physical Anthropology, Archaeology and Philology."



>> Read the full article for free

>> Visit the Festival of Archaeology website

“Practising Archaeology – as if it really matters”: Archaeology and a responsibility to the public



A solar energy farm is planned for locations near Peterborough, UK

Last week the BBC reported that plans for a solar energy farm near Peterborough, UK have been put on hold after the city council agreed to have an archaeological survey conducted in the area. English Heritage recommended the survey and referred to evidence that there could be “presence of nationally important buried Bronze and Iron Age landscapes in the vicinity". The article states that "[c]ampaigners hoping to halt plans for a solar energy farm near Peterborough are celebrating" but also that the project "would help achieve renewable energy targets and profits would keep tax bills low". This raises an interesting question - just how much do archaeologists take into account the needs, wants and expectations of the community around them when conducting excavations and surveys that potentially could stop development of areas all together?

K Anne Pyburn considers this question in her article "Practising Archaeology - as if it really matters" published in the August 2009 special issue of Public Archaeology entitled 'Archaeological Ethnographies'. In the article Professor Pyburn surmises that "People care about archaeology for a variety of competing reasons" and that "Archaeologists no longer ignore this as they once did, but few have come to terms on a pragmatic level with their responsibility to the public" and recommends "Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a method that archaeologists untrained in ethnography can use to expediently develop ethnographically sensitive and respectful relationships."

The following is an excerpt from the article:

"I base my work on several preconceptions. First, all fieldwork, whether it is archaeology or palaeontology or geology or something else, has an impact on living people. The degree of the effect is related to various factors including the mere presence of the researcher as an outsider, or at least as someone with a defined agenda, the attention the research draws to the local area, and the political implications of the interpretations the researcher makes...The repercussions of the research can be positive, negative or neutral but most of the time any research programme has some positive, some negative and some neutral effects all at the same time."

Professor Pyburn goes on to conclude that:

"From my perspective, ethnographic knowledge is the result of sharing information rather than simply extracting it from a community to which the ethnographer does not belong. Respecting the people who will be influenced by archaeological research does not amount to learning their habits and language well enough to coax them into supporting what the archaeologist wants to do. The archaeologist does indeed need to know the people interested in her work, but the interested people also need a chance to know the archaeologist, and her culture. Arranging for these processes to happen in tandem is not going to result in the ethnographic excavation Radcliffe-Brown accomplished in the Andaman Islands, but archaeologists need more breadth than depth in their ethnography and for our purposes it is as important to be known as to know."

>> Read the full article for free

>> Read the BBC article "Peterborough solar farm: Archaeology puts plans on hold"