Participating in the Past: The Demand for Excavation Experience

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4.7 The Demand for Excavation Experience

Although it is important to ensure that ‘digging’ is seen as but one component of a very broad canvas of the archaeological process as discussed above, respondents clearly would like more opportunities to participate. This demand has been further dramatically illustrated by the number (estimated to be 10,000) who responded to Time Team’s proposal to join the ‘Big Dig’, an enthusiastic audience which generally this survey will not have reached.

There are a fair number of participatory opportunities available, as can be seen from the annual Archaeology Handbook published by Current Archaeology and in the pages of the CBA’s British Archaeology and the associated web sites. There are also an increasing number of ‘training excavations’, although most charge a fee. Nevertheless the existing opportunities for individuals to experience excavation first-hand are not meeting the demand.

A number of local groups do run their own excavations (Darvill and Russell 2002, 65), but a number of others who might do so are intimidated by the responsibility involved, which is perceived to be increasingly onerous as professional standards – which of necessity need to be emulated – continue to rise, and there are difficulties with obtaining, and retaining, sufficiently qualified site directors. ‘Excavation is destruction’ and ‘non-publication of results is a crime’, are principles now deeply imbued into the archaeological community as a whole. Meeting these standards can be difficult enough for full time workers. This whole area came into focus with the discussions on the implications of the Valletta Convention (Council of Europe) to which the government is now a signatory.

There is no doubt that local training opportunities may go some way to meeting these perceived difficulties but there may need to be some fundamental conceptual shifts, particularly within professional archaeology which is perceived by those outside to be over-protective both of its own interests and the ‘historic resource’. It has been suggested that there are ample opportunities for local fieldwork of ‘interventionist’ character at a level suitable for local groups and that that the profession should welcome and support appropriate local initiatives which may range from test-pitting to trial trenching to larger scale fieldwork. Some such local work has received funding through the Local Heritage Initiative.

Several archaeological contractors have also found ways around the numerous practical constraints under which they operate, and have encouraged local people to participate in their own fieldwork activities. This has been much welcomed and is to be encouraged as is the development of a constructive working relationship between local groups of fieldworkers and professionals.

In other instances some curatorial organisations (local authority archaeologists) have themselves been able to make specific provision for local involvement – for instance on sites where a long-term predictable work programme is anticipated. Local society excavations apart, there are also a few ‘community’ excavations. Nobody would deny the extent of dedication and resource required to arrange this kind of direct participation but it clearly has enormous benefit in producing locally skilled people, in engaging communities with their historic environments and in providing initial experience for a new generation of professionals.

Finally, there is the more complex question of underwater archaeology in all its components, inevitably a particularly skill and equipment-demanding discipline. Only one respondent dealt with this area but it is clear that there still remains much scope for harnessing the basic skills and enthusiasms of sports divers into an archaeological frame of reference. At minimum there is considerable scope for Sited and Monuments Record (SMR) enhancement in this area.