Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
Summary
I had been teaching British and Irish prehistory for a long time when I realised that my courses were out of date. The same was true of the museum displays concerned with the prehistoric period and even of the policies enacted by government agencies. Why was this?
On reflection, the reason has become clear. There has been a massive increase in the amount of archaeological fieldwork that has taken place as part of the planning process, and this happened at a time when universities and museums were playing a smaller role in practical archaeology. It would be all too easy to talk of a schism in the discipline, but it is certainly true that the flow of information has diminished. That is hardly surprising because the growth of developer-funded archaeology has put new pressures on those undertaking the work. There have always been problems with excavators who do not publish their results, but in the commercial climate that now prevails, the production of academic papers is often delayed or abandoned. That is especially unfortunate because the number and scale of field projects is undoubtedly increasing.
I suppose that there have been two ways of reacting to this state of affairs. One is to insist that any fieldwork conducted under these conditions must have its limitations. It must have been carried out hurriedly and without sufficient background research. I have heard this complaint from many academics, and in my view it is unjustified.
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- Information
- The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland , pp. xv - xviiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007