Summer approaches. In places winter was very dry; indeed, some drought orders are still in place. Traditionally this is good news for archaeologists - everyone knows that droughts can reveal buried or plough-levelled sites as cropmarks.
However, it already seems clear that, especially in England, there will be fewer aerial archaeologists flying fewer hours than at any time since the 1970s. Information is likely to be lost, as some sites may show as cropmarks only once in ten or 20 years. Unless the right person is overhead at the right time, they will come and go unrecorded. They will simply not form part of our knowledge of Britain' s archaeology.
Moreover, our ignorance of their existence may prove terminal for them. Where, by contrast, sites are recognised and recorded in Sites and Monuments Records (SMRs), measures for their conservation can be negotiated with their farmers, and potential developers can be required to take account of their presence. In the worst case, their rescue excavation can be properly planned.
Aerial reconnaissance has limitations in the completeness and detail it can offer, but it remains the most cost-effective extensive survey medium we have, and one that has transformed our understanding of uplands and plough-levelled lowlands alike. Over the last 20 years, a heterogeneous body of national and regional flyers has been built up, and now coverage, though still uneven, is more extensive than ever before.
The regional flyers are mainly public service archaeologists flying their own areas. This has obvious benefits - an intimate local knowledge of both archaeology and threats, and direct integration with SMRs. They are funded by both central and local government, but in recent years local authorities have covered an increasing part of the cost. The substantial costs of staff time for flying, post- reconnaissance and siting are covered locally, while central grants cover the direct costs of aircraft and film (but not, since 1994, of printing). Central government funding is channelled through the Royal Commissions, who use it both for regional grants and to fund their own flying programmes (an arrangement whose potential problems and conflicts were discussed by Richard Morris on this page in BA, February 1995).
This year's crisis has two causes. First, the Commissions have experienced cuts in their government funding (see BA, April). In Scotland and Wales they may maintain the same level of funding as last year (though for regional flying in Scotland this is still only UKP6,000); but in England, at the time of writing, the total for all regional flying is given as UKP5,000, down from UKP14,800 in 1995/6, UKP23,300 in 1994/5, and an exceptional UKP46,000 in 1989/90.
The second problem is that this time it is unlikely the bill can be picked up by hard-pressed local authorities. In Scotland and Wales the new, smaller authorities are only just finding their feet, and national funding for the Welsh Archaeological Trusts is also down, while in England almost all County Councils (the usual base for this work) have experienced savage cuts which have already resulted in job losses in many archaeological services. Few have budgets left to rescue the flying programme, though some certainly intend to try.
The immediate problem is that there will be little money for aerial reconnaissance this year. In the longer term, a complete review of the resourcing of this branch of archaeology is required. By its nature it cannot efficiently be developer or project funded. Its share of the diminishing government funding for archaeology must be examined, while the relative division and cost-effectiveness of central funds for centrally and locally based flying must be reviewed.
Above all, continuity must be maintained. As Richard Morris wrote, a high proportion of the expertise in this subject resides with the regional flyers - people who have overcome considerable difficulties to initiate local flying programmes. They cannot be turned on and off like a tap. If the central funds that serve as a focus for local funding disappear, so too could the programmes themselves. Even if central flying is maintained at the Commissions, it could not compensate, in local knowledge and efficient exploitation of localised conditions, for a weakening of the regional network.
Frances Griffith, Hon Secretary of the CBA, is a former Secretary of its Aerial Archaeology Committee. She has carried out aerial recon-naissance in south-west England since 1983.
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© Council for British Archaeology, 1996