Hello HistArchers!

I have some really sad news to report.

The results of Stephen Harper's Conservative government's recently
announced budget cuts are now clear and historical archaeology in Canada
has been dealt a mortal blow.

Effective in about four months, all the regional labs will be closed with
the artifacts being packed and shipped to Ottawa. Unfortunately, there is
really no place for them there nor the staff to deal with the huge amount
of material. It is also unclear who will do the packing as lab personnel
have been sacked. There will certainly be no staff to unpack the material
which will henceforth not be available to researchers.

Most regions will now have but one archaeologist to deal with all the sites
in their region.

The once productive Material Culture Research Section in Ottawa
that churned out hundreds of useful research reports has been completely
cut with all five remaining researchers being handed their walking papers.

What a loss of research skills and knowledge!

Fortunately, the Underwater Archaeology Section headquartered in
Ottawa remains untouched as they do much research in the Arctic and Arctic
Sovereignty is a priority with the Harper government.

The Society for Historical Archaeology and the Canadian Archaeological
Association are in the process of preparing an official statement
concerning the travesty outlined above and other organizations and
individuals have already done so but will this have any effect? Is there
anything that can be done to save the federal archaeology program in Canada?


Parks Canada archaeology may be likened to a person who has just undergone
major intrusive surgery and the vital signs are far from stable. Can
anything be done to save the patient???

Karlis

PS For an excellent synthesis of the Parks Canada archaeology cuts, see the
Elfshot blog's Summary of Archaeology Cuts at
http://elfshotgallery.blogspot.ca/