Participating in the Past: Information and Communication

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6.2 Information and Communication

Many archaeological organisations are clearly failing to disseminate information in an accessible form to the general public. This appears to be a particular problem with commercial archaeological organisations who often fail to place the results of fieldwork into the public domain within a reasonable time, or in a format which makes the information easily accessible.

Although there are well-established mechanisms for reporting such work after the event, such as Discovery and Excavation in Scotland or Archaeology in Wales, the publications of CBA regional groups, and the Archaeological Investigations in England Project, such sources are not only retrospective but tend to appeal to relatively limited audiences. Better ways need to be found of drawing attention to archaeological fieldwork whilst in progress and to rapidly providing readily accessible interim information on the results of the work (see Jones et al 2001).

  • Recommendation 2: Local authority archaeologists, the Standing Conference of Archaeological Unit Managers and the IFA should engage in detailed discussions, together with appropriate national bodies, about improving the character and timing of dissemination of the results of fieldwork to the public, for example through widespread implementation of the OASIS project).