I would disagree. Public archaeology is alive and well in Kentucky with
involvement by both private firms who choose to initiate projects that
utilize volunteers and local universities and  other organizations such as
Kentucky Archaeological Survey. Virtually all of the grant research I
conduct involves volunteers at some level and we encourage volunteerism
through the Museum of Anthropology. I would agree that professional
archaeologists still firmly hold the reins with respect to project
supervision and quality control and that, in my opinion, is how it should
be. Most contract work is pretty much limited to professionals here, but
there are still a significant number of important, informative projects
(major excavations, thematic surveys, etc.) falling outside the realm of
CRM that offer opportunities to the general public to become involved in
archaeology.

At 03:43 PM 2/6/01 +0100, you wrote:
>someone on the german-language list said that many british (and, he
assumes, US
>and canadian) excavations are mostly staffed by untrained volunteers and green
>students - i said that there has been some discussion lately about the fact
>that
>professional units and private companies don't really have any room for
>supervising volunteers, so most rescue excavation is done by trained and
>experienced personnel - that volunteers and the like no longer have a
chance to
>gain experience - and that apart from a few digs run by local societies
and the
>like (university training digs), excavation has pretty much gone
>professional in
>english-speaking archaeology -
>        is that about right or have i got it wrong?
>
>geoff carver
>http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
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Nancy O'Malley
Assistant Director
W.S. Webb Museum of Anthropology
and Office of State Archaeology
211 Lafferty Hall
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky 40506
Tele.: 859-257-8208
FAX: 859-323-3686