Last Orders?

Last Orders? Professor Geoffrey Wainwright's perspective on the lasthalf-century of British archaeology (`Time please', ANTIQUITY 74(2000): 909-43 -- below TP) was an explicitly personal account of aremarkable series of developments in which he played an influentialpart. This equally personal comment reflects mainly on the world ofarchaeology's collision with market forces. The world of archaeology The world of archaeology's `intensely tribal love ofgatherings, feastings and vendettas' is both a strength and anAchilles' heel. Until the 1980s, economic irrelevance allowed thediscipline to develop internal philosophies, methodologies and practiceswhich were largely unconditioned unconditioned/un��con��di��tion��ed/ (un?kon-dish��und) not a result of conditioning; unlearned; occurring naturally or spontaneously. by either external paymasters or widersocial obligations. Perhaps no bad thing in itself, this had a downsidein weak structural and intellectual contact with the rest of humanity. A classic example was the abortive abortive/abor��tive/ (ah-bor��tiv)1. incompletely developed.2. abortifacient (1).3. cutting short the course of a disease.a��bor��tiveadj.1. attempt to create a regionalstructure of field archaeology units in the 1970s. TP over-estimates theinfluence of archaeologists on its outcome, even to the extent ofassuming that one of us engineered its collapse. The reality wasmessier, and more prosaic. The Department of the Environment's proposal was not precededby consultation with the Association of County Councils (ACC See adaptive cruise control. ) about whatnaively amounted to central direction of how locally-raised taxes shouldbe spent, and an assumption that local authorities would cheerfully fundsomething which would often be based and working outside their ownborders. The ACC sought advice from the newly-founded Association ofCounty Archaeological Officers (ACAO ACAO Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer (US State Department, Public Affairs)ACAO Armenian Cultural Association of Ottawa (Ottawa, ON, Canada)) which found itself trying to limitdamage while persuading puzzled ACC lawyers that good men had made theproposals in good faith in an entirely worthy cause. ACAO opposed theregional proposal, not to safeguard local positions but because it wasimpracticable. The interests of research and the span to achievecritical organizational mass did indeed point temptingly towardsregional arrangements, but these would neither have served, nor havebeen served by, a local government system with responsibilities inplanning, museums and education at county or district level. Today, withregional government back on the political agenda, it is timely toremember this. The sixteenth PPG PPG Points Per Game (basketball player statistic)PPG Power Play Goals (hockey)PPG Planning Policy Guidance (UK)PPG Programmable Pulse GeneratorPPG Power Puff Girls -- Planning and Archaeology (PPG-16) TP rightly celebrates the genesis of PPG-16, which successfullyintegrated a mechanism for archaeological conservation into developmentcontrol and planning policy, but does not face up to its inherentlimitations. PPG-16 is not a strategic blueprint for a knowledge-basedactivity, and nor should it be; in those terms it is tactical, anenvironmental land-use planning document for managing threats to thematerial inheritance. It is not designed to provide wider access toresults through the social purposes of research, education, tourism orcommunity interest. In the absence of parallel provision for suchaccess, economic forces to which archaeology is secondary have sappedthe discipline's primary strength as a knowledge-based activity,while doing nothing to improve what TP acknowledges as a poor record innon-academic communication. The plight of Sites and Monuments Records (SMRs) illustrates thepoint. The pioneering Oxfordshire system created by Don Benson in themid 1960s was based in a County Museum service, and sought to inform thegood folk of Oxfordshire as much as land-use planning. Yet as SMRsspread with the steady appointment of County (and later District)archaeologists, mostly in planning departments, increasing pressures andreducing resources made wider dissemination of information holdingsalmost impossible without an institutional framework, such as a museum,dedicated to such activities. An assessment of English SMRs in 1998-99showed that most were run by one person; that usage was mainly internal,planning-related and largely disconnected from the wider social useswhich politically justified the planning constraint in the first place.Attempts to stimulate public debate on the latter aspect were playedwith a dead bat by government and English Heritage English Heritage is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) with a broad remit of managing the historic environment of England. It was set up under the terms of the National Heritage Act 1983. alike, in terms whichfailed to see past the restricted scope of PPG-16. Those growing pains grow��ing painspl.n.Pains in the limbs and joints of children or adolescents, frequently occurring at night and often attributed to rapid growth but arising from various unrelated causes. -- the three `C's TP also celebrates the emergence of the `curator',`contractor' and `consultant' -- a reformatting of the tribesthat was a steep entrance fee to pay for access to the real world. Thenew roles overlaid an older concept of managing and understanding thearchaeological inheritance through a universally shared curatorship --something which TP dismisses as an `illusory golden age' and whichadmittedly was never seriously tested by real world pressures. Yet thenew model is itself inadequate because in practice, thus far, the rolesdo not inherently embrace researchers and communicators. Too manycurators are under-resourced and handicapped regulators of anessentially commercial process, lacking the time and sometimes thefieldwork experience or academic background fully to monitor or controlcontracting activities. Contractors mostly find themselves `mitigatingenvironmental impacts' rather than answering historical questions,adding to knowledge of a topic or a place, or sharing the knowledge on asustained basis with those who live in it. To survive, many have to bidprices below a level at which a site can be properly examined, withdeleterious consequences for quality of output, staff wages andconditions of work. Some consultants seem to promote their clients'interests on the tacit assumption that a good curator will make it allturn out right in the end. The Institute of Field Archaeologists The Institute of Field Archaeologists is a professional organisation for archaeologists in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at the School of Human and Environmental Science, in the University of Reading. struggles with the burdensome administration of self-regulation throughits scheme for Registered Archaeological Organisations, but the mainproblem lies with those who would never get registered; dealing withinstances of alleged unacceptable practice is difficult in thedangerously litigious litigiousadj. referring to a person who constantly brings or prolongs legal actions, particularly when the legal maneuvers are unnecessary or unfounded. Such persons often enjoy legal battles, controversy, the courtroom, the spotlight, use the courts to punish waters of the commercial market. All this is thecontext for the 30 million [pounds sterling] or more triumphantly saidto be generated by the new `industry' (more inapt in��apt?adj.1. Inappropriate: an inapt remark.2. Inept: inapt handling of the project. jargon). Inreality it is an atomistic at��om��is��tic? also at��om��is��ti��caladj.1. Of or having to do with atoms or atomism.2. Consisting of many separate, often disparate elements: an atomistic culture. spend, not a lump sum Lump sumA large one-time payment of money. at the disposal ofcoherent enquiry that could ultimately benefit all. Nonetheless, what PPG-16 has helped achieve should not beunderestimated, and it is easy to forget the conditions prevailingbefore 1990. Today, more people are doing more work to higher standards;major projects are being conducted within rigorous research designs;some high quality reports are emerging. Yet 10 years on, most of thestrategic effort within archaeology's world is still going into theslow and painful preparation of research frameworks, regional and topicagendas and urban strategies. This is effort essentially related toinput, helping to improve the aim of development-led archaeology (orcompensate for the lack of control outside the planning system), ratherthan the output of results into understanding and the community. Theviews of respected researchers about the usefulness of what PPG-16 isactually generating have been sounding warning bells for some time. More change Continuing change in archaeological and wider worlds has createdboth obstacles and opportunities for those who want to mitigate theimpact of commodification Commodification (or commoditization) is the transformation of what is normally a non-commodity into a commodity, or, in other words, to assign value. As the word commodity has distinct meanings in business and in Marxist theory, commodification . The biggest structural problem is thecontinuing decline of the public service ethos, exacerbated by politicalinsensitivity to archaeology's social value. PPG-16'sappearance coincided with the introduction of `purchaser-provider'models into public services, and energetic attempts to externalise v. 1. to make external.Verb 1. externalise - regard as objectiveexternalize, projectpsychological science, psychology - the science of mental life orprivatize the providers. Misleading analogies with the`curator-contractor' model increased the vulnerability of locallybased archaeological services trying to provide intellectual access forlocal people. PPG-16's requirements made demonstrating commercialpropriety more important than building or providing a viable localservice. In most areas, the emerging territory-free market-orientatedcommercial network is intrinsically unfitted to sustain local serviceswith any knowledge-based continuity. The exceptions tend to prove the rule. TP cites Essex, but Essexhas always been one of the best counties for historical conservationservices. More symptomatic is Bedfordshire's experience. Thecounty-wide historical conservation service could not survive cutsarising from the mid '90s review of local government. Thoughplanning work continues, its 25-year-old field unit lost its corefunding for local service provision including backlog post-excavationwork. Recognizing a crisis, but suffering financial problems of its own,English Heritage substituted an archiving programme in place of analysisand publication for most of its grant-aided projects. The field Unit hasrecently been commercially rebranded as part of a Council programme ofwholesale privatization privatization:see nationalization. privatizationTransfer of government services or assets to the private sector. State-owned assets may be sold to private owners, or statutory restrictions on competition between privately and publicly owned with a view to stand-alone financial viability. Ironically, just as the world of archaeology reformatted itself toserve commercial requirements, the world of ordinary people has declareda hunger for knowledge that market-driven archaeology is largely unableto deliver. TP describes the growing popularity of programmes like TimeTeam, Meet the Ancestors and Talking Landscapes. Again, contributionsfrom commercial archaeology, such as the Museum of London'seffective projections of the Spanish Lady and girl-power gladiators,tend to be the rule-proving exceptions. Sadly, instead of recognizing apotential bridge, the world of archaeology's introspective in��tro��spect?intr.v. in��tro��spect��ed, in��tro��spect��ing, in��tro��spectsTo engage in introspection.[Latin intr tendencyreacts to the Time Team with self-defining hostility. Seeds of another kind of dysfunctionality lie in the newcomparatively well-funded cultural and environmental access initiativestriumphantly wheeled out by governments of decidedly unjoined-uptemperament. Enterprises such as the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF HLF Heritage Lottery FundHLF Hapag Lloyd Flug (German airline)HLF Himalayan Light FoundationHLF Hawaiian Longboard FederationHLF High-Level FormatHLF Home Location FunctionHLF Hook Length Formula ), theLocal Heritage Initiative and Culture-on-Line bestow their largesse lar��gessalso lar��gesse ?n.1. a. Liberality in bestowing gifts, especially in a lofty or condescending manner.b. Money or gifts bestowed.2. Generosity of spirit or attitude. intoa situation in which resources for the basic management and promotion ofthe historic environment (upon which access depends) are generallyreducing. Referring back to SMRs, HLF funds are available for accessprojects, but not adequately for the structural development that mustunderpin access; many archaeological officers are saying that thetime-take of complex paper-work rules out developing project proposals. What to do? In order to realize its cultural value in the widest, public,sense, the world of archaeology needs to revisit its root idea: thateverything to do with the historic environment is knowledge-andquestion-based. There is an unassailable case for adequate -- notextravagant -- support from public funds for necessary infrastructureand the provision of intellectual context and continuity for otherwisedisembodied commercial work. Public interest archaeology calls forpublic support. No other source exists. Honourable exceptions aside,neither site-based privatized solutions, nor public-privatecollaborations, nor independents and societies are by themselves able toprovide the permanence and stability essential for long-termknowledge-based activity. Here we must consider the frustration and the future ofarchaeology's independents and local societies. For decades theyhave been the mainstay of interaction with the rest of society. Manyfeel overwhelmed by or suspicious of the bureaucracies and procedures of`public' archaeology. Reasonably enough, many will want to continueto do their own things rather than provide bottom-up responses totop-down imperatives for access which seek to reach constituencies widerthan they usually address. Even so, non-commercial partnerships betweenlocally based professional services and local independents, carefullyhandled, could re-energize on all sides, assuming a realistic approachby the latter, whose contributions would vary greatly from place toplace. Funding from the public purse would bring responsibilities. `Bestvalue' regimes now being applied to many public services mightprovide the right kind of scrutiny and accountability -- provided theycan be adapted (with `value' properly defined) to deal effectivelywith knowledge-based activities. For commercial archaeology, some kindof regulation may be the only way to equilibrate e��quil��i��brate?v. e��quil��i��brat��ed, e��quil��i��brat��ing, e��quil��i��bratesv.intr.To be in or bring about equilibrium.v.tr.To maintain in or bring into equilibrium. existing distortive dis��tor��tive?adj.Serving to distort: harsh and distortive peaks in the recorded music; a robust fortissimo without distortive vibration.andoften counter-productive stresses generated by market forces.`Curators' (better called `planning archaeologists') ought tobe able to ensure not only that what is required in the commercialsector is fair both to the developer and the archaeological inheritance,but also, crucially, that the process requires results to be fed back toresearch and community. This will demand new mechanisms, resources andperformance indicators in order to confer permanence and prominence uponpublic explanation. A properly resourced professional Institute ought tobe able to inspect and monitor the standards and infrastructure of allfieldwork-related organizations. Development of training programmes inparallel would consolidate the standards needed to make regulationlight-handed rather than confrontational. Regulation, of course, will be anathema to some -- as indeed itdeserves to be if it amounts to a festival of managerialism In the field of administration, observers can characterise as managerialism those systems where they perceive a preponderance or excess of managerial techniques, solutions and personnel. orrestrictive practice in narrow professional or academic interests. Butit is not the kind of control some currently fear in the context ofimplementing the Valetta Convention; rather, its purpose would be toprotect the knowledge-based nature of archaeological work. It is theunavoidable antidote to the market-driven nature of development-related`interventions' if they are to pull their academic weight besidethe research projects that TP rightly celebrates. As many have said manytimes, we need a structure within which the right kind of competitioncan take place, for the best research design, for the best ability toprovide the range and continuity of skills for the task, and for themost economical and efficient delivery of results within thoseparameters. Get these ends and means across to the politicians, the professionsand archaeology's involved or supporting public at large, and wewill be faced not with Last Orders and drinking-up time, but anextension of licence, to print history rather than money, without terminto a productive future for the continuing exploration ofhistory's universe. DAVID BAKER & RICHARD MORRIS (*) (*) Baker dbb@suttons.org.uk Morris aasv24@dial.pipex.com