Sunday, February 12, 2012

New Book: Making Archaeology Happen

Left Coast Press

This being Martin Carver (he of Sutton Hoo) it is probably a UK-centric book (I haven't read it yet) but it's an interesting, widely relevant topic.


Making Archaeology Happen: Design versus Dogma
Martin Carver (Author)
184 pp. / 6.00 x 9.00 / Sep, 2011

‘Archaeology is for people’ is the theme of this book. Split between the academic and commercial sectors, archaeological investigation is also deeply embedded in the needs of local communities, making it simultaneously an art, science and social science. Such a multi-disciplinary discipline needs special methods and creative freedom, not repetitive responses. Carver argues that commercial procedures and academic theory are both suffocating creativity in fieldwork. He’d like to see us bring much more diversity and technical ingenuity to every opportunity, and maintains this is more a matter of getting ourselves free of dogma than needing more time and money. This has many implications for the way archaeology is designed and procured – moving archaeologists up the professional ladder from builder to architect, with contracts based on quality of design, not the price.

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