Why should SHA members financially subsidise SOPA members involved in
commercial archeology who are going to use this privilege as a means to make
money mostly in profit making organisations. My own experience of working in
CRM in Britain is that our own equivalent IFA has done nothing to affect the
steadily falling standards brought about by commercial pressures. Basically
anyone who works for a couple of years and forks up the cash will be
accredited. In Britain a training in digging palaeolithic caves will also
accredit you to dig up C18 gardens. Unscrupulous companies can always buy
archeologists to say what they want but when are they ever taken on by
organisations such as IFA and ROPA. Of course they wouldn''t dare because a
court case against a large company would probably bankrupt them- and would
largely come down to whose expert witness you believed especially once the
archaeology was gone. In reality we all grumble against company or unit  X
who we know lied like hell to get a contract and bulldozed the archaeology
while no one was looking - but in reality we just get on with trying to get
our next contract because ro rock the boat could be the end of a career. How
many incompetent and dishonest archeologists are ever struck off. I may be
cynical but professional organisations of all types throughout history have
largely existed to protect the interests of their members against everyone
else including the public. I suspect it is easier to get jailed than thrown
out. There is a lot of difference between having a set of standards on paper
and actually applying them in the real world of commercial archaeology. The
simple reality is that unless an organistion like SOPA actually has
inspectors who go out and check standards you might as well toss them in the
bin- because unlike doctors arcaheologist's clients are only going to
complain about cost not quality.
Paul Courtney, Leicester