Untitled - Council for British Archaeology

. The
, BILL
Editorial
We make no excuse about returning to the
theme of rescue archaeology. Rescue has
been the dominant archaeological problem since
'1970 and is likely to remain so*throughout therest
of the decade.
As predicted in earlier editorials there
has been a'reactiOn against rescue archaeology
in 1975: Surprisingly this reaction
has comë, not from those who control the,
purse-strings, but from within the archaeological
'profession' itself. The eneral"
argument is that a great deal of money spent
on rescue work over the past few years has
been wasted and that we should return to research
based investigation.
While there is little'doilbt.that muCh is
still wrong with the orumization and implementation.
of rescue archaeolog, this'arguMent
ignores much of what has haOliened- in recent
years. In many of our ancient urban centres
we have organizations to deal with re'clevelopment
threats. lu most counties too we have
an archaeological presence capable of making
some sort of response to threatened archaeological
deposits. In many counti'es archaeological
coniiderations are now firmly embodied
in planning procedure. We are,tiow in the.'
process of designing local, regional and
national policies for rescue. There axe
hopes for substantial improvements too in the
areas of publication, conservation, data
storage, retrieval and training. In short
there have been a number of substantial
achievementi on the organizational side.
The essence of the research argument is
that there are a number of 'good' sites and
that we should concentrate our resources upon
these to obtain the 'best' results. We now
know that there are very many more sites than
we had previously anticipated. Our whole
concept of the nature of ancient settlement
and its distribution has been changed (or at
leas* it should have been), therefore, until
we are in a better position to judge the
totality of our archaeological resource we are
in no position to make a final, or even intermediate,
derti'sion on what is best. To ignore
the destruccion of the many small tural sites
threatened by urban expansion, major road
schemes, mineral extraction and so on, is to
pre-judge the nature of the evidence and to
insist upon making decisions based on comfortable
but totally misleading data.
A second point which those in their ivory
towers do not appear to appreciate is that
archaeology is now in many areas a public service.
Many rescue based organizations are
performing a pastoral role in recording local
information. To curtail this service would
be to admit that archaeology in its widest
sense had no, or little social relevance.
It is difficult to know if those who are
arguing for a return to the 'good old days'
are serious or simply acting as devil's advocate
in order to promote sensible research
orientated rescue archaeology. If it is the
latter they have our sympathy, if not, they
should consider the damage they may ultimately
inflict upon the whole of British archaeology
by parading their antiquarian ideas.
It is astonishing that in some quarters
archaeology is still largely equated with excavation,
and that often of a particular
period site. Certainly the material presented
in this Newsletter shows a proper emphasis
on survey, with a concern for above ground
evidence and the continuous occupation of
sites, which one hopes is gaining general acceptance.
It is an omission not noted in the
review on Archaeological Publications (p. 3) -
that the preoccupation a-ere is almost entirely
with the results of excavation. As said last
year, the new and wider view presents difficulties
of arrangement for editors, but we
trust that these have been met. This year
the Bradwell Abbey Field Centre (Milton
Keynes) reports are grouped together, as again
are those from the Oxford Unit, to facilitate
separate distribution as offprints.
Finally, once again we appeal for news from
more societies and institutions and for contributions
earlier. The deadlinc for Newsletter
No. 7 is, hopefully, 30 November 1976.
TREVOR. ROWLEY
FOWLER .
CBA and CBA9 - W.J. Fowler, Hon. Sec. CBA9
wide range of CBA activities during the
past year is fully set out 'in "Archaeology-in
Britain 1974-5" (CBA 50p. post free), bût,
like every organization these days, the CBA
now fac:is financial difficulties. One of the
most promising proposals is to establish an