Yesterday the regular meeting of the EAA 'Community of Professional Associations in Archaeology' took place at the
European Association of Archaeologists meeting in Bern. This year provided an opportunity to update on the 'Connecting Archaeological Associations in Europe' project that we began following last year's EAA meeting in Barcelona. I posted about it
on this blog (
link here), and you can read the paper Gerry Wait and I wrote for
Archäologische Informationen (Open Access)
here. Gerry and I are working with Frank Siegmund and Diane Scherzler of DGUF.
Bern seen from the University
The project has so far had responses from over 140 organisations across Europe - some large, most very small - but together representing 45,000 citizens. This justifies one of the rationales for the project - archaeological associations (of whatever form) provide a huge opportunity for archaeologists to engage with the wider world.
My own contribution was to try and characterise the situation in the UK. I chose to use an analogy from natural science, and described the archaeological frameworks in the UK as a series of ecosystems together forming a biosphere. This was then used as a background on which to map the influence of the different types of archaeological association. I will summarise the talk here.
In my very simplified scheme I identified four broad archaeological 'ecosystems' in the UK.
Academia is arguably the oldest of these 'ecosystems', but many UK academics do not study the archaeology of the UK. Moreover academics do not always engage with the other ecosystems (but more on that in a moment). Arrangements for '
state heritage agencies' differ markedly between the different parts of the UK. Wales effectively has three actors in the system (Cadw, the Royal Commission and the Welsh Archaeological Trusts), England now has two (Historic England an English Heritage) and Scotland just one (Historic Environment Scotland). The other two 'ecosystems' have emerged following the adoption of 'polluter pays' legislation from the early 1990s.
Planning authorities and commercial archaeology represent the two sides of that coin. Planning in archaeology is generally done at 'county' level in the UK, with some notable exceptions such as London (where is done by Historic England) and Wales (where it is done by the Welsh Archaeological Trusts).
Consultants and contractors come in a bewildering variety of sizes and institutional structures.
These four 'ecosystems' work together in a 'biosphere'. This is my rough attempt to characterise the flows of information and action between the different 'ecosystems' in the archaeological 'biosphere'. The thicker the arrow the stronger the flow, and the closer the connection.
Clearly the strongest connections are between those two sides of the 'polluter pays' coin - between planning archaeologists and the consultants and contractors in the private sector. Information flows regularly between them: consultants and contractors work to a brief prepared by their planning colleagues; they use data in the Historic Environment Records (HERs) to inform their work, and their work adds data to the HERs - and this all happens on a regular and frequent cycle. Planning archaeologists tend to have good links with their colleagues in the state heritage agencies too. Those in the state heritage agencies are usually well-connected politically, but not always directly with archaeologists 'on the ground' or with local communities. Academics tend to engage less frequently with commercial archaeologists and with planning archaeologists (and HERs); they do have closer relationships with state heritage actors who provide permission to undertake work on certain sites, and are useful partners when seeking funding.
This is an enormous simplification, but non-UK colleagues found it a helpful way of describing a complex and not always logical system. Of course archaeologists in the 'biosphere' are aware of the tendency of the 'ecosystems' to become silos, and so they join and participate in archaeological associations to learn more about what is going on elsewhere, and to keep up-to-date with their own interests.
There are a number of different types of archaeological assocation. To simplify, I again characterised these into four broad types.
The category '
professional associations' contains the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA), which is the only body to accredit archaeologists and to hold them accountable to a
Code of Conduct through peer review.
Associations 'by similar employment' are those representing institutions - I used the examples of the Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers (ALGAO) and the Federation of Archaeological Managers and Employers (FAME). Essentially these associations represent institutions forming the two sides of the 'polluter pays' coin - ALGAO for planning archaeologists, and FAME for contractors and consultants.
Pressure or lobby groups have been formed almost in a 'counter cultural' way at particular times of development pressure, and are now part of the archaeological establishment. I used the examples of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) established in 1944, and RESCUE - established in 1971 during the second wave of post-war redevelopment and still an important voice.
Finally there are the
learned societies. These go back to the post-Enlightenment eighteenth century, and range in size from very local, to regional, national and international. Some specialise in a particular period (the Society for Medieval Archaeology for example), others in particular types of archaeology regardless of period (for instance the Historical Metallurgy Society). Most have a journal and organise trips and meetings; many are constrained by the demographics of their membership.
Now I attempted to map these associations against the 'biosphere' of the active archaeological discipline.
Generally speaking learned societies are dominated by academics, and to a lesser extent those from state heritage bodies (usually senior people in stable employment). They appeal to those in the 'polluter pays' part of the system too, but for a variety of reasons to a lesser extent. In contrast the associations by employment appeal exclusively to planning archaeologists and archaeological contractors and consultants.
Professional associations appeal largely to archaeological contractors and consultants, with significant engagement too from colleagues in planning authorities. This is because CIfA offers independent accreditation and a 'badge' of competence to practice, which is valued by clients and other non-archaeologists. In contrast academic colleagues, and those in state heritage agencies, feel validated by their own status and the accreditation that their own institution provides, so see less value in CIfA membership (although I think they are wrong to do so).
On the other hand pressure or lobby groups appeal much more to academics, who are not as tightly constrained as their colleagues elsewhere. Archaeologists working for the state heritage agencies or in local government (or in the case of planning archaeologists in Wales working for neither but funded by both) have to remain politically neutral. Commercial archaeologists likewise can be more cautious about the political aspect of pressure and lobby groups as they do not wish to alienate clients.
The video below is an abridged version of the full presentation.
I hope you find this useful. If you have any comments please let me know. Perhaps the best way of doing so is via Twitter but other ways are also welcome!