James

I have one way of making archaeologists write reports. I am a contract
archaeologist in Australia. I get paid at the end of a job, I can't even
invoice until I have given the client the report. It NEVER takes me that
long to get down to business and write the site up.

However, that does not really solve the problem The reports disappear into
offices never to be seen again except by other professionals working with a
site (I don't just mean other archaeologists) but the general public never
get to see them. I thought when I first started that  copies would be lodged
at the state library but only a few are. And me! I'm so busy writing reports
to get paid I can't even get my Ph.D finished let alone do something
constructive and interesting with the pile of data accumulating in my office
in the form of these reports.

The maritime archaeologists here are pretty good at the grass roots interest
stuff. They work the press for all it's worth, they run interesting museums,
design wreck trails and they publish, publish, publish books aimed at the
general public.

They had a similar problem to pot hunters, taking things from wrecks was a
real popular past time with divers. Drivers had their own journal's and
resented the archaeologists trying to stop them looting wrecks for interest
or profit. The maritimer's started by getting the law on their side, all
wrecks over a certain age are protected. Then they set about talking,
publishing, generating grass roots interest in the general community and
importantly working with the diving community. Most of the diving community
are on side now. They help document and set up wreck trails and help protect
them.

Some pot hunting, bottle hunting or wreck fossicking is purely for profit
and the people who are in it for that do it systematically and
professionally and do heaps of damage. The majority however, are casual
fossickers or people caught by their interest in the past or looking for
that connection. Be truthful that's why we are archaeologists. We have the
same interest and are looking for the same connections. It is why it is so
hard to summon an argument against it because deep down we are all
fossickers at heart. These are the people that the maritimer's have been
successful in reaching. We need to reach them too.


-----Original Message-----
From: James G. Gibb <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, 21 January 2000 2:57
Subject: Re: clandestine digging for dough

 I think we need to clean our own house
>first. Our discipline, our professional organizations, need to be very
>specific in their respective ethics statements or codes: YOU WILL
>PREPARE A THOROUGH TECHNICAL REPORT IN A REASONABLE PERIOD OF TIME. YOU
>WILL INCLUDE PLANS FOR PROCESSING, ANALYZING, AND REPORTING WHEN
>DEVELOPING A RESEARCH DESIGN.
>
>I apologize for yelling, but sometimes we need to raise our voices to be
>heard. The point I want heard is that we need to be a little harder on
>ourselves first: perhaps then we can speak to our avocational friends
>with a bit more conviction and no hypocrisy.
>
>Jim Gibb
>Annapolis, MD
>RCL wrote:
>>
>> (I'm a student, so I may be putting my neck on a block and handing
someone
>> an ax, but...)
>>
>> A pot-hunter rips stuff out of the ground, washes the crud off it, and
>> hocks it or puts it on a shelf or in a barrel to admire. An archaeologist
>> painstakingly excavates a site, uses deionized water to carefully clean
the
>> artifacts he recovered, and curates everything in a climate-controlled
>> warehouse. What's the difference? I would maintain that, at this
>> point,  there is none. The difference comes later.  The archaeologist
>> analyzes what he has found, carefully describes it, draws conclusions
based
>> on the material he's recovered and his subsequent research, and publishes
>> the whole thing, publicly tossing his skeet up for others to shoot at.
>> Whether his conclusions are accepted or refuted, the net result is some
>> incremental increase in overall knowledge about the past. The key is the
>> PUBLICation  and doing so in a forum that is accessible to as many other
>> people - professionals, interested amateurs, students, curiosity seekers,
>> anyone - as possible. I'm not convinced that it's possible to consider as
>> "publication"  the sending of a single copy of a report to a company, a
>> governmental agency, or even a university unless there is some means to
get
>> at least an abstract widely disseminated and to allow the report itself
to
>> occasionally emerge from its hidden file.
>>          Yes, I realize there are funding problems to be faced, but I
>> question if any project, archaeological or otherwise, has ever been
really
>> "properly" funded. The must-have elements are still completed. Perhaps
it's
>> time to consider proper publication as a must-have element?
>>
>> Robert C. Leavitt
>> UNR Retread Student
>>
>