Untitled - Council for British Archaeology

- ological. IfEDITORIALThe arrangement of this Newsletter is in chronological sequence'exceptthat most of the units require separate offprints which necessitates keepingtheir reports together. This year.the entries of the units are very muchlonger than the sum of the contribution by part-timers so the overall..chronsequenceis quite disturbed:- In spite of this societies and otherbodies are invited-to consider taking offprints in future years.the number of part-time contributions, and the worries about thelack of support expressed by the Chess Valley Society, represent the truepicture, then we are witnessing a fil-off in mirk by part-timers. This ismost worrying, perhaps an inquiry into the causes and possible remedies couldbe 4 topic for discussion at the Annual Conference. Have the prnfessionalswarned off amateur groups too much? Many of the small-scale excavations onunthreatened sites carried out 10-15 yeara ago, although then contributingto archaeological knowledge,- would not now do so. However, this does notmean that there is now rio place for small-scale excavations. Some threatenedsites have had to be abandoned by the DoE and units because of lack of resources.Many apparently less important sites, such as village earthworks,never even come to the attention of the professionalâ. Small-scale Work onsuch sites before destruction would be most useful to confirm that they wereindeed not important. Sometimes of course there are surprises. The Saxonsite at Raunds, Northants, was discovered by an excavation of two weeks bysix part-timers. The expected Cl3th buildings were found but overlaid anAnglo-Saxon graveyard'. The site has now become a full scale professiénal ex- -navation under the auspices of the DoE and the Manpower Services Commission(p.14).If excavation is not a society's choice then there are such invaluableactivities as grave-yard recording and fieldwork. Many would claim thatfieldwork was more important than excavation. Any group feeling it does notknow what to do usefully should contact their.local Unit, County Authorityor Museum. In all the regions advice will readily be given on what wantsinvestigating most urgently.On a more cheerful note it is good to see the contributions on buildings- the new group based at Dunstable is doing excellent work. Perhapsone daY we will even have some information from an industrial archaeologist.This Newsletter has been collected together even more rapidly thanusual and I have not had time to follow up contributors for the projectedlonger articles and regional reviews of various topics. This will be pursuednext year.I would like to thank Trevor Rowley and the secretarial staff atBewley House for the actual production of the Newsletter and seeing itthrough the press in time for the Annual Report Conference. I would alsolike to thank Pill Fowler for all his work with many previous Newslettereditions.David Hall