Participating in the Past: Professional Input
4.11 Professional Input
A number of respondents specifically mentioned the benefits gained from liaison between professionals – that is employed archaeologists – and amateurs. Input from professionals was valued in terms of training, general support and involvement for local groups through, for instance, liaison meetings and occasionally by direct supervision of some activities. Amateurs, in turn, contributed local archaeological knowledge and contacts, and in some cases expertise outside the traditional areas of archaeology.
Professional support came from a variety of sources including from commercial units, local planning archaeologists, Sites and Monument Records officers, museum staff, external studies departments and universities. In some areas it is clear that professionals were able to provide suggestions of suitable local projects for groups and subsequently provide general local support. The best arrangements often occurred where there was a fixed, sustainable, local contact point, which was less easy to achieve with the shifting territorial activities of commercial archaeological organisation (apart from support given in their home-base areas).
A few areas have been able to appoint ‘community archaeologists’ dedicated to working with local groups in furthering their knowledge and involvement with the heritage (Schadla-Hall forthcoming). The establishment of such posts has been welcomed. There is no doubt that effective liaison of this kind requires a good level of commitment on both sides and may involve considerable resources. On the professional side there may be something of a sea-change required to overcome the anxieties of some professionals as being thought in some way ‘less professional’ due to operating in an amateur framework.
