Reading Craig Spence's post about the rise of environment assessments in UK
and its effect on archaeology is like having  "deja vu all over again."
California went through exactly this process in the 1970s and '80s when
there was a great vacuum of qualified people to do highly focused research
for historic period sites and consequently the archaeologists did it
themselves. Historians were outraged. And rightly so in many cases, for the
quality of work was often low...
Things were quite ugly for a while with charges of "historical naivete" and
"shameless poaching" being traded around. Eventually, this lead to the
founding of an organization, the CCPH, which certifies historians in
certain areas of specialization. Of course, using a "registered
professional historian" doesn't guarantee good work, but as least it
provides some assurance to commercial clients who otherwise have little
more than their consultant's word to go on.
UK is fortunate to have such a widely respected organization as IFA to
assess archaeologists. The US equivalent, SOPA, has never really been able
to get off the ground (I've been a member for 16 years). Unfortunately,
SOPA has recently dropped its area certification in Historical Archaeology.
 
OK you lot, no more procrastinating -- get back to work!
 
Adrian Praetzellis
Sonoma State University