Hinterland: rurality, community and heritage in Ceredigion (conference paper)

 Between 2011 and 2013 I worked on a project in rural Wales to increase community engagement with heritage.  The project had difficulty in achieving all of its aims.  My reflections on the experience formed the basis of a paper I presented at the CHAT conference in 2016.  I prepared a text for publication but plans for the conference volume fell through, so I present it here as written at the time.

I should note that since then, the temporary Pilgrim statue mentioned has been replaced by a crowdfunded permanent statue,  and the Strata Florida Trust has developed a museum, excavation and heritage events programme, and has published a series of books about the abbey and its landscape.

Hinterland: rurality, community and heritage in Ceredigion

Martin Locock, University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory, Orkney, 21-23 October 2016

 

Abstract

The village of Pontrhydfendigaid in rural Wales is a long way from anywhere.  It shares its landscape with the remains of the Cistercian abbey of Strata Florida, now in the care of Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments, promoted as one of the jewels of Welsh heritage.  Alongside research excavations by University of Wales Trinity Saint David, an EAFRD funded project was run in 2011-2013 to promote understanding of the heritage by local businesses and the community. 

The project encountered a variety of responses reflecting disengagement with the conventional connoisseur narrative, going beyond apathy and lack of knowledge.  This paper explores how the community defines itself in relation to tourists, authorities, and the past, rejecting the imposition of external agendas in favour of an identity constructed from social networks, in which the association with agriculture, mining, and Welsh language culture is of greater significance that the monument on their doorstep.  In addition, working with the community revealed the complexity of the population’s cultural and social affinities, suggesting that it should rather be thought of as a group of overlapping communities with distinct interests, membership rules and practices. 

The relationship between local inhabitants and their neighbouring icon is enacted through different cultural forms, including family history, poetry, ghost stories, leisure activities and well and cemetery visits; their understanding of its formal academic history and significance may be minimal.  Rather than assume that their interest can be readily attracted through exposure to generic heritage discourse, it is necessary to consider the distinctive elements within the heritage bundle and the emotional baggage they may carry.

The paper concludes by reflecting on the construction of place and identity in a rural context and the tensions inherent in living alongside an asset valued highly by others.

 

Introduction

One of the beneficial by-products of the instrumentalist approach to heritage, seeing it as a mechanism to build community identity, social inclusion and a tourism-based economy, has been a democratisation of heritage.  Previously, heritage was considered a national good, to be preserved and passed on to future generations.  Efforts were made to engage the majority of the nation in actually enjoying the heritage as visitors, but it was clear to all that identification, selection, and custodianship lay in the hands the knowledgeable few who held both power and knowledge.  For a decade, this view within the profession has shifted towards acknowledging that ‘we are all archaeologists now’ (Holtorf 2015: 217).  The community archaeology of the last decade has links that can be traced back to the Manpower Services Commission schemes of the late 1980s which for the first time sought to include members of local communities with the examination and presentation of heritage, both as workers and audience.  There remains a debate about whether all values should be driven from below, or if there should remain a role for the expert in defining what LauraJane Smith in The Uses of Heritage has called an ‘authorised heritage discourse’:

“The AHD is considered a self-referential discourse that ‘privileges monumentality and grand scale, innate artefact/site significance tied to time depth, scientific/aesthetic expert judgement, social consensus and nation building'” (Smith, 2006: 11)

Thus Smith describes a discourse in which straightforward power relations are moderated by the inclusion of expertise and social context, what Brand (2004: 15) describes as the tripartite definition of cultural value between specialists, the public and the government.  The Faro Convention (Council of Europe, 2005) adopts a bottom-up approach where a ‘heritage community’ is conceived as an ad hoc collaboration between individuals and bodies who share a common goal in the management of heritage, implying that a consensus should be sought that satisfies all parties.  There is a danger with this that a community becomes ‘The Community’, essentialising group identity and masking the complexities of social relations (Smith and Waterton 2013: s.6); rather it may be necessary to think of a series of communities with memberships and relationships.  

These theoretical questions came to the fore in the course of recent work by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David near the village of Pontrhydfendigaid, Ceredigion, Wales, and this paper explores how, in practice, a community relates to and constructs its own heritage.

 

Hinterland

This paper takes its title from the recent TV detective series co-produced by S4C and BBC Wales, and filmed in both English- and Welsh-language versions.   The aesthetic of the series is consciously derived from the ”Nordic Noir” dramas of Wallander and Forbrydelsen (The Killing), featuring loving panoramas of bleak skies over barren hills, scattered farmhouses heavy with feuds and secrets, and a feeling that modern civilisation is a long way away (Moss, 2013). 

The series is filmed in the area of Ceredigion to the north and east of Aberystwyth, the western edge of the Cambrian Mountains, what the poet Harri Webb has called “the Green Desert”.  Those familiar with the area will recognise that the impression of isolation and emptiness is artfully created by the use of selected camera positions, the creation of a virtual location from a mosaic of real locations, and showing only the most telegenic of weather.  Nevertheless, this artifice reflects a core truth – that this is an area where nature is unconfined but culture is.  There are few people, and population change is slow; the combination of push factors leading some to leave, and pull factors leading incomers to settle, creates a distinct and specific social milieu detached from metropolitan Britain.  It might be expected that such a context would be highly hospitable to the valuing and enjoyment of heritage.

Pontrhydfendigaid is a small nucleated linear settlement to the northeast of Cors Caron, a large lake and peat bog.  Its name (literally ‘the bridge over the ford of the maiden [Virgin Mary]’) reflects its location on the banks of the River Teifi.   Although its history can be traced back to a medieval settlement of bondsmen of Strata Florida Abbey, it owes its size and character to the 19^th century boom in silver lead mining in the vicinity (Bezant 2014, 61; Austin, 2013a; Dyfed Archaeological Trust, n.d.).  There are a few hundred residents.

 

Pontrhydfendigaid’s authorised heritage discourse

The picturesque ruin of Strata Florida Abbey has been part of antiquarian consciousness for 200 years; it was the subject of the largest 19^th century excavation in Wales in the 1880s, funded by the Cambrian Archaeological Association, yielding decorated floor tiles that went on display in the British Museum.   When the Manchester and Milford Railway arrived, day excursions to the ruins were advertised. 

The significance of the site has been endorsed through legal protection: it is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (among the first batch of sites in Wales to be included) and a Grade I Listed Building.  It falls within the Upland Ceredigion Landscape of Outstanding Historic Interest in Wales and is one of the 123 sites managed by Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments. 

As a Cistercian monastic house, it has enjoyed academic prominence (Austin 2013b).  The Cistercians are the rock stars of monasticism, subject of a steady stream of conferences and publications.  “For many, the Cistercian order remains the medieval monastic success story par excellence” (Stober, nd).

The iconography of the abbey and, in particular, the graves of the princes of Deheubarth and the key role of the scriptorium in preserving Medieval Welsh literature, has made it a touchstone for Welsh nationalism, lying outside the more politically sensitive Norman edifices of North and South Wales.

National and regional tourism campaigns have promoted the Abbey, basing its importance of this cluster of endorsements from experts and professionals, defining and perpetuating an Authorised Heritage Discourse.  

 

The project

Since 1999, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David has been undertaking a long-term research project into Strata Florida and its landscape, including documentary research and mapping of landholdings (Bezant, 2009), geophysical and ecological survey (Bezant, 2007), building recording, and research excavations in areas around the Scheduled Ancient Monument designated site.   The programme’s centrepiece has been a four-week training excavation with up to 100 students from Lampeter working on the site (Austin 2004).    The project has featured on TV including Digging for Britain (2012) and Hidden Histories (2010).  Although efforts were made to publicise the University’s work and involve the local community, it proved hard to establish and foster connections. 

In 2011 UWTSD successfully applied for £0.4m funding from the EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) for the Strata Florida Heritage Landscape Tourism Project under Ceredigion’s Axis 323 (Connecting People, Nature and Heritage strand).  This was a two-year programme intended to develop the local economy by encouraging the use of heritage by local businesses in their marketing, improving interpretation and access to the Abbey environs, and undertaking events and activities to engage the community and to promote the area to tourists.  The mid-term evaluation of Axis 323 noted “With a view to maximising their potential impact, projects should be encouraged to avoid an over focus on ‘preaching to the converted’ and targeting ‘new’ groups to participate in the project” (Wavehill, 2012), and in keeping with this the activities included open days, talks, school sessions, and a conference.  One of the requirements of the funding was for the documentation and evaluation of the impact of the activities, involving measures including visitor counts, questionnaires and surveys, and as a result it is possible to assess objectively the extent to which the community became engaged. 

 

Community engagement

Prior to the commencement of the project, Cadw recorded 5,000 visitors per year to Strata Florida Abbey (Peate, 2010).  It was recognised that the vast majority of these visitors were from outside the local area (95% or more).  From a tourism point of view, this can be seen as a positive characteristic, since these visitors bring new spending into the local economy, but on the other hand this reflects a disengagement by the community.   The project therefore targeted the local population through activities aimed at outreach through linking up with existing networks, and offering accessible pathways to encourage engagement with the heritage.  A quarterly Community Liaison Group was set up, bringing together local councillors, landowners and representatives of community groups, to consult on and promote activities.  An intensive effort was made to raise the heritage component of primary school teaching in the area through a programme of weekly talks to the four local primary schools over a term, culminating in a site visit.  

A baseline survey of all users of the visitor car park was undertaken on one day in August 2012; individuals were asked about their main reason for visiting, whether they had visited before, and their home address.  The results confirmed that the visitor profile was dominated by long-distance tourists.

In 2012 a two-day series of site Open Days were held, focused on the continuing archaeological excavation of the monastic gatehouse, but also including children’s activities, living history performers, storytelling and musical performances, craft displays and activities, and site-specific sculpture.  Although it was expected that these Open Days would prove attractive to heritage tourists, it was hoped that the addition of the range of less formal attractions would encourage the inhabitants of Pontrhydfendigaid to visit (the excavations were open to visitors throughout the digging season).  As it happened, the weekend coincided with extremely heavy thunderstorms, high winds and flash flooding, rendering travel difficult.  It was considered that this would reduce the proportion of people travelling longer distances to attend.

A further event was arranged in October 2012 in the form of a one-day conference in Lampeter, ‘Celtic Myth and Landscape’.  It was hoped that broadening the topics to include elements of literature and art would appeal to those whose interests lay outside conventional archaeology.

Table 1: Home address of participants at Strata Florida events 2012

Home address	Baseline survey		Open Day		Celtic myth and landscape
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Pontrhydfendigaid postcode	0	0%	33	50%	2	6%
Other Ceredigion/Lampeter postcode	4	29%	13	20%	14	45%
Other Wales	5	36%	14	21%	12	39%
England	5	36%	6	9%	3	10%
Total	14	100%	66	100%	31	100%

 

The pattern of engagement is broadly consistent:  however locally-focused the event, the bulk of participants are drawn from elsewhere, despite the various attempts to expand from a strictly archaeological agenda to include ancillary sectors and activities.   Broadly speaking the approach adopted was the Fields of Dreams model: if we build it, they will come, or if we make people aware of the heritage, they will become interested in it.  The conclusion reached by the project was that this approach is naïve: after so many opportunities for engagement, lack of take-up must reflect something more fundamental, a decision to not engage.

The problem of reaching new parts of community was encountered across the RDP programme, even though its importance was recognised:   “The impact of the projects, in terms of making people aware of and interested in local heritage, will be / has been substantially greater if they are able to engage with groups of visitors and/or local residents who were previously unaware or uninterested in that heritage” (Wavehill, 2015).

Fundamentally, the question can be redrafted as “why does the Authorised Heritage Discourse fail to appeal to many in the local community?”  With that framing, disengagement becomes more explicable.  Parker has argued in Neighbours from Hell? that the Welsh cultural experience can be seen as a long history of being told what to do by their English rulers (2007, passim).   In the case of Pontrhydfendigaid, it has been accustomed to the literal and metaphorical hegemony of English kings, French monastic orders, the English church, English and Irish gentry estate owners (the Stedmans and the Earls of Lisburne), government agencies such as the Forestry Commission and Cadw, and parliaments and assemblies in Cardiff and Westminster.  In the circumstances, the community might legitimately see the university as just the latest external authority seeking to define how they should behave.

 

Complexities of identity and the Unauthorised Heritage Discourse

Drilling down from “the Community” in order to establish how engagement might be more effective, it is clear that it would be more accurate to talk of communities- an overlapping set of groups and sub-groups with differing memberships reflecting their identity, interests and social relations.  In such a small community, the pattern in surprisingly complex, perhaps reflecting the rurality of the region.   In a larger conurbation, individuals are free to seek out and link up with others who match their outlook closely, often relying on informal networks and a stream of one-off events.  In an isolated settlement, there are fewer such opportunities to develop and strengthen bonds with others.  In their stead, membership of multiple groups, and avoidance of other groups, can be used to reflect an individual social persona.

Table 2: Oppositions and communities in Pontrhydfendigaid

Welsh speaking	:	English speaking
Native	:	Incomer
Anglican	:	Nonconformist
Young	:	Old
Working class	:	Middle class
Farmer	:	Villager
Ecology	:	History
Dog walker	:	Horse rider
Women’s Institute	:	Merched Y Wawr

 

Not all of these oppositions are necessarily hostile, but they do represent a fragmentation of identity which affects the viability of efforts to engage with the community.   It is also reflected in the variety of cultural practices that have developed in which people engage with heritage on their own terms.

The Unauthorised Heritage Discourse comprises the elements of culture and history that are valued by the community (or parts of it) without reference to the gatekeepers of authority.  Usually these elements are left unexpressed, but in this case local tourism businesses had been asked to identify what made the area special as part of a Sense of Place workshop (Visit Wales 2015).   After adding the obvious, authorised, elements, a hinterland of more visceral and individualistic emerged: ghost stories, folk tales, mining lore, onomastic and family stories, poetry, and traditions linked to places.   For example the local mysterious big cat, The Beast of Bont, was cited with pride rather than being seen as a negative aspect (Coard, 2007; Hurn, 2009; Furness, 2012).

 The key components of the Unauthorised Heritage Discourse are those that are embodied in cultural practice; the performative element celebrates, reinforces and transmits the meaning.  The annual Bont Eisteddfod provides a focus for Welsh-language music and literature creation and performance within the community.  Another ritual specific to Wales is the ‘Sul y Blodau‘ (Flower Sunday), the annual practice of visiting all the family graves on Palm Sunday and decorating them leaving flowers.  

Another local tradition is the leaving of flowers and candles at a spring (or holy well) in the bank of the Afon Glasffrwd at Ffynnon Dyffryn Tywel (‘the spring in the quiet valley’).   This is anonymous and individual (it is unclear who is responsible, and how many different people are involved), but is presumably associated with some form of pagan or earth magic belief.  It is interesting that this practice has emerged in a place with a long history of ritualised practice using water, including the chalybeate springs whose iron-rich health-giving properties were one of the attractions cited for railway day-trippers in the late 19^th century, the Ffynnon Lygaid (‘eye well’) of early post-medieval date, and Pantyfedwen, which may be medieval in date (Evans 1903, 32).  Proponents of ‘deep mapping’ would argue that such recurrences reflect a continuity embedded in the relationship between human and landscape (Kavanagh 2015), but it is curious that the specific locales vary over time.

A final recurring practice are regular visits to the Anglican church at Strata Florida, whose graveyard contains a yew tree traditionally associated with Dafydd ap Gwilym, the foremost medieval poet in the Welsh language.  

What these features have in common is that they are not arbitrary visits to arbitrary places of some notional interest: they are imbued with a hinterland of meaning and purpose reflecting the value to the individual.  This applies a symbolic meaning of the landscape which could be co-opted into the Authorised Heritage Discourse.  As Belford has noted, a community may wish to influence the discourse, not develop their own (2011, 64).

 

Semi-authorised heritage discourse

From a pragmatic point of view, the issue faced by the custodians of the authorised heritage discourse is how to replicate the enthusiasm and interest arising from the Unauthorised Heritage Discourse instrumentally to achieve their desired ends in terms of the public good of increased engagement with heritage by previously disengaged groups.  Are there any narrative strands that might be used to bring together the power of story with the physical heritage?  

One aspect of the rural community is the longevity of families and their associations with places.   In the case of the post-medieval ‘squatter settlement” of Rhos Gelligron on the edges of the common to the southeast of the village, the limited archaeological evidence of the abandoned buildings was supplemented by a much richer social history narrative preserved by descendants of the occupants, who had moved into the village (Tarlow, 2009).

The Nanteos cup is a small wooden bowl (a medieval mazer) held by the successors to the Stedmans, the post-Dissolution owners of Strata Florida; its actual provenance and history is unknown, but for more than a century it has been the subject of a speculative narrative that associates its use for healing in the 19^th century, arrival at Strata Florida in the final days of monasticism, and before that perhaps a role in the Last Supper as the Holy Grail.   In the 1900s, Evans sought to popularise this account as part of his efforts to preserve and promote the Abbey ruins (Jenkins, 2009: 5).  

As part of the 2012 Open Days, nine members of Sculpture Cymru were commissioned to produce site-specific works, created and installed during the week and displayed at the Open Days.   The works were intended to be ephemeral responses to the heritage and landscape of the area, and included references to metalworking, ceramics and textiles.  The most ambitious work was The Pilgrim, by Glenn Morris, a 3m-high statue positioned on the summit of the small hill overlooking the Abbey.  The statue comprised wooden elements bolted to a steel frame anchored into the ground by concrete. In allusion to the use of the uplands by the Abbey for sheep pasture, the statue was clothed in a woollen smock.  The appearance of this new feature on the skyline had an immediate effect and was adopted as a local landmark by the community.  Although it had been intended that the statue would be dismantled after the project, the reaction was so positive that it has been left standing, and has become an icon for the area (for example, it was used on the cover of the photograph collection Ceredigion At My Feet (Hughes 2016)). 

If it proves possible to harness the power of stories like these, the heritage of Pontrhydfendigaid may come to be seen as part of the community rather than simply located within it.  The Strata Florida Trust is currently in the process of taking ownership of farm buildings adjacent to the ruins with the intent of developing the Strata Florida Centre with true community involvement (Bettley, 2016).  Alongside a continuing increase in the number of visitors (to 6,391 in 2014 (GSR, 2015)), the economic and cultural impact of the heritage appears to be growing.

Conclusion

A project working in an area with a large population can afford the luxury of narrowcasting: if it only reached 5%, or 1%, of the audience, there will still be hundreds of people packing out events and completing evaluation forms.  As a result, it may never occur to funders or implementation staff to consider who they are missing, and why they might not be responding as desired.  In a rural context, disengagement is visible.

The experience of the Strata Florida Heritage Landscape Project shows that even with good intentions and local knowledge, a conscious re-learning is necessary to reframe an Authorised Heritage Discourse to appeal to a community which may have little interest in an official or academic narrative whose stories stir in them no recognition or emotion. 

 

 

 
Acknowledgements

The Strata Florida Heritage Landscape Tourism Project was part-funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development through the Welsh Government.  The author is grateful to Professor David Austin for his contribution to the development of this paper; the views expressed are his own..

 

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Can't we all just get along?

As I said a long time ago, archaeologists often start with an innocent belief that they share the interests and roles of all otehr archaeologists. If only, they think, we could get the planners and builders and architects out of the room, we could sort out the rescue response required in two minutes flat, and everyone would be happy. Maybe. But probably not - because, just as lawyers are supposed to protect their client's interests, archaeologists have a responsibility to their clients, whoever they are. An archaeologist who agrees to do more archaeological work than the situation requires is acting unethically. A planning archaeologist who demands more archaeological work than the evidence supports is acting unethically. Strangely enough, in all the concern that has been expressed about the strains that commercial interests may impose on archaeological judgements, this has never been said. A recent research project looking at the Evaluation of Archaeological Decision-making Processes
and Sampling Strategies in Wales was

"a valuable opportunity to step back, take stock and think more generally about the strengths and weaknesses of developer-funded archaeological work and the role of development control archaeologists in Wales."

This project would look carefully at the data used in DC responses to developments, whether the judgements were reasonable, and whether the predicted archaeological resource was present or not. Well, it would if I had scoped it. The report has now been produced and I will return to it in another post.

For now I just want to emphasise that no, we can't all just get along. But this need not mean that we are in league with the devil. Andrew Marvell made this point eloquentaly in his paper to the IfA Conference last year, now published on Scribd:


The New WHS Trowel-Paper given to the Institute for Archaeologists conference 2009.

Bridging the skills gap and re-thinking evaluation practice

The worst of the recession appears to be over, at least for archaeology. The concern now (for the remaining members of the profession) is whether it can cope with a rise in demand for work, needing more staff, and in particular if the lack of specific skills will prevent or delay projects. I don't think it should.

There may be a pool of archaeologists, laid off in summer 2008, who would be available for recruitment. This may prove harder than expected; it is surprising how quickly people realise that archaeology may not in fact be the only way they want to spend their lives. Quite apart from the fact that they can probably earn more for doing less demanding work, the basic level benefits may prove hard to resist - the prospect of long hours in the van to be dropped in on some random site may appeal less to people who've got used to being paid from the moment they walk into the office.

But even so, that leaves a smallish gap. Even if the 600 or so posts which were lost were re-created, there have been 8,000 new graduates in archaeological subjects since September 2008 (based on the figures in Profiling the Profession). Doing some analysis of the figures for age profile and length of contract, there were 1,000 archaeologists in the age range 25-29 who responded, representing a cohort of about 600/year. (It's a shame that the websites advising would-be archaeologists on degree courses don't point out that 1 in 10 of graduates in normal conditions end up working in the profession.) So any shortfall in available existing diggers could be readily filled by new staff.

Of course, for many years now archaeologists have been unwilling to employ such people, leading to the dilemma that only those with experience will be employed. This makes life easier, since even new staff will be able to work from the start, but obscures the fact that someone somewhere must have provided some training. You hope so, anyway, although the fact that someone has been on lots of sites may not mean they have contributed much or learnt anything. Rather than rely on this informal apprenticeship, an employer would be better served by audited the skills of its new staff, identifying any gaps, and maybe, you know, provide some training. This need not be a series of lectures on the theory of stratigraphy - it could consist of being shown common local pottery types, or how to start a sludge pump.

Although it is hard to extract this directly from the report, it appears that most of these recent graduates working on commercial fieldwork projects up to the age of 29 then move on, either to other roles within archaeology, or leaving the profession. As a result, employers should expect that there will be turnover, so there will be new recruits, so there will be training needs. So plan for them.

But the other side of the concern is the loss of specific specialist skills, such as building survey. How can an organisation deliver a project without the necessary trained specialist staff? The answer is, the same way they used to, before 41% of staff had masters degrees, before Investors in People, before CPD. If you need someone to record a building, send them out with some drawing stuff and cameras, and tell them to get on with it. Archaeologists used to be good at devising, developing, and refining methodologies for new areas of work - so as soon as the Hedgerow Regulations 1997 defined the need to determine which hedgerows are historic, projects came in and were done. And desk-based assessments as a formal exercise were created overnight by PPG16- and again, they were done. Not perfectly. But archaeologists are capable flexible people with a strong grasp of recording and reporting. It may be that some silly errors are made, that buildings are misclassified or misunderstood. But a record will be made: possibly a different record, possibly a better record, than one that would have been made by a buildings expert with tunnel vision for a specific feature or type of building. It is interesting to note that East Lothian Council assumed that it would be archaeologists who would be dealing with recording buildings (see their excellent Historic Building Recording guidance (2006)), a view that would have been anathema to Conservation Officers in the 1990s who thought architectural historians should be relied upon.

And finally, it must be said that a break in continuity, and a return to first principles, might be a good thing. Commercial archaeology before the bubble burst had become a frantic, mechanical process yielding isolated factoids. OASIS now has 4000 grey literature reports for download. A random example is Wessex Arcaheology's report on The Wickets (the report is clear and detailed) (also available direct from Wessex). A planning condition, a written scheme of investigation, a specification, an evaluation, a report, an archive, to commemorate the fact that trenches were dug and nothing was found. Perhaps it was worthwhile. But for the planners to require developers to fund the excavation of 6% of the site area on the basis of: residual flints found in the general area (but not the site), residual Roman pottery and medieval found in the general area (but not the site), and the possibility that medieval tenement plots might run back 100m from the High Street (although there are no topographic grounds for expecting they might, or that they would yield significant archaeological remains if they did), seems bizarre. The report describing this evaluation says "No archaeological research, either desk based or intrusive has previously been
undertaken for this Site." Perhaps some map work might have been a simpler and better way to decide on the burgage plot question? Surely this 'dig a hole just in case' mentality should be rethought? How about assessing on some real basis the likelihood that archaeological remains might be affected before swinging into overkill mode?
(I should note that I have no particular issue about or knowledge of this development and its archaeology, but it does seem an exemplar of everbody working very hard to prove that nothing was there, when there seemed few grounds for thinking there would be).

The power of the self-talk

Modesty and self-deprecation are instinctive and engrained, even in managers. This may be particularly true in Britain, where being proud of something is considered to run perilously close to being conceited or arrogant, but it probably universal. Less universal, though, is the inability to take a compliment. I think it is reasonable that when somebody has decided to praise you, you are allowed to say " thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the talk", not "aw shucks, it was nothing". Reasonable, yes, but easy to do, no.

But perhaps social self-doubt has its role in preserving relationships; unfortunately it often is mirrored by internal self-doubt, the monologue that says "this meeting's going to be hard, you're never very good at this, see, what did I tell you?, it'll be worse next time ...". As a result, it's all too easy to lose sight of the things you can do well, and to miss the chance to bask for a while in the satisfaction of achievement. For a course I was on recently we had to spend five minutes writing in our journals about three things we were good at. It really was hard to break out of the bonds of modesty, and felt completely unnatural. It was very useful, though, to remind us that, yes, we were ok, we weren't necessarily in crisis mode all the time. I cannot remember the last time I had thought along these lines, looking at the positives; self-criticism is a hard habit to break (not that it doesn't have its place, but it's unhealthy as the only mode of thought).

My suggested adaptation is this: write down three headings:
* a skill you have, something you are good at
* your greatest achievement
* the event or person that has changed you most

Think for a minute, then write soemthing down for each heading. You're not deciding your answers for ever; maybe tomorrow you'd choose other examples. What you should be doing is 1, reminding yourself what is important to you and how you have been effective; and 2, practising positive self-analysis that should assist you in understanding your own motivation, values and goals.

It sound silly, but it works.

Should project managers be optimists?

[This question arose from an office discussion about targets and programming]

The short answer: probably.

The longer answer: maybe not, not completely. But a project manager needs to be optimistic about the project, and to believe that it is worth doing and is achievable. If they don't believe that, they will be unable to convince anyone else; and they will find it hard to come up with the tenacity, flexibility and single-minded purpose that is needed to drag a reluctant project to a successful conclusion.

And they need to have faith in the ability of their team to learn and grow. There's no point planning a project team by assigning the roles to experienced specialists, only to discover that when it's time to start none are available. What can you do? Give up, or gather the best team you can and fill the gaps by improvisation.

They also need to be risk-takers. All worthwhile projects involve substantial risk, vene if it's just the risk to reputation that would follow from failure and the opportunity cost of other things that could have been done instead. The exclusion of all risk would make projects impossible to start. Good risk-takers are hard to find, of course; you don't want to mistake blind insensibility to danger for courage.

At a practical level, pessimism can be useful too: if there are important deadlines, best to look at progress with a negative attitude. But pessimism is often accompanied by despair: project managers have to believe that their actions can make a difference, that the world is perfectable, that salvation can be grasped.

Commercial archaeology and the ethics of development

"These are my principles - and if you don't like them, well, I have others" - Groucho Marx.

Archaeologists have a very strong ethical sense. Despite what Indiana Jones and Bonekickers imply, it's not about the fame or the treasure: it's about the Knowledge. Having signed up to the disinterested service of knowledge, archaeologists are hypercritical of any of their colleagues who appears to be swayed by other concerns. It is hardly surprising, then, that the development of commercial archaeology has involved some self-analysis, soul-searching and mud-slinging. Especially the mud-slinging: it is slightly bewildering to see the debate about the merits of the IfA as a professional body which seems to judge its performance solely on its ability to police and punish those whose practice falls below the required standard. It is important, granted, but there are other things to consider.

I have commented on the impact of PPG16 in the UK on archaeological attitudes before: the present, over-prescriptive, over-curated, arrangements for developer-funded work can be seen as a response to the deep distrust of a situation where financial or other pressure might push excavators into misrepresenting their findings.

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist

But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to

Humbert Wolfe

Irish archaeology is now in the process of commercialisation, and this has led to similar issues being raised. Maggie Ronayne has published a lengthy paper (pdf) in the journal Public Archaeology reflecting on the archaeological response to the M3 motorway and its effect on Tara and other sites. Her argument can be summarised as: an inadequate supervisory framework for the archaeological investigation, put in place by metaphorically and literally corrupt politicians, and implemented by metaphorically corrupt government archaeologists, led to fieldwork of varying standards by well-meaning individual archaeologists whose results were watered down to ensure that the development proceeded as intended. Specifically she draws on the experience of her sister, who was a licensee for part of the evaluation (p. 121), who hoped that if enough important archaeology were to be found on the route "it might stop the motorway".

Similar statements have been made about the Thornborough Henges, the Rose Theatre, and the A34 Newbury bypass. They are based on a misconception of the role of the archaeologist in assessing impact. The archaeologist is being asked to determine what the imopact might be, by characterising the nature of the archaeological resource affected, and assigning a value of significance to that resource and the level of impact. The conclusion of a study may be (as it was with the M3 initial desk-based assessment) that the proposal would have major impacts on very important archaeological sites. But that is not to say that the development should proceed. The relative weighting given to archaeology alongside other factors (such as economic benefits, ecology, and employment) is not an archaeological question: it is a question for the wider community, society, or their appointed or elected representatives. Ronayne argues that the local community's wishes were ignored: that is a democratic deficit, not an archaeological one.

The question most often arises at the field evaluation stage, when developers ask nervously "Is it important? Nationally important? Will it be Scheduled?": to which the answer is usually "Yes, maybe, no". The recent news that 20% of Scheduled Monuments are already at risk suggests that even if the answer to the last question is "Yes" there may be wiggle room. In many ways it would be easier to manage the resource coherently if protection were more draconian: it would certainly be easier to advise clients if the position were clearer. PPG16 starts form the point that preservation in situ is the preferred option; preservation by record may be an acceptable alternative. This results in the paradoxical situation where mediocre archaeology found on development sites is carefully protected while sites like Stonehenge are dug up by students as part of a media exercise.

It remains the case that the ascription of value is the most important and most contentious part of any evaluation exercise. It is generally poor tactics for a developer to seek to underplay the archaeological value affected, since it calls into question the validity of the evaluation exercise: it is much better to say "yes, it's important, I realise that: this is what I want to do about it". Which is not to say that there aren't silly developers who think that they can override any concerns by shouting loud enough or relying on political pressure. Although there have been attempts to systematise the assignment of value, it remains a highly individual and subjective process; it is common, for example, for 'sexy' archaeology (Roman and Bronze Age) to be scored higher than industrial and recent sites.

It is best for commercial archaeologists to see themselves as barristers for their clients: sometimes you have to tell them to plead guilty.


Update: Moore Group blog on Ronayne and the M3



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Step 3: Image

I have written before on my literary blog, A Few Words about the interaction between codes of dress and business in the realm of archaeology.

All across the country, favourite jumpers were consigned to bonfires or dog bedding, as the strange new world of short hair and clean clothes opened out. For the die-hards, it only took a couple of occasions on which their opinions or assistance were dismissed by busy businessmen because they looked like the people who cleaned the site toilets to recommend a change.

This was perhaps a simplistic view. What I struggled with was how to explain the culture of archaeological dress. Now I propose to follow a more roundabout route, going back to first principles: what is the function of clothing?

A recent study reported:

"… students indicated why an item of clothing they particularly valued was important to them, including perceived functional and mood-related benefits, but also clothes as means for expressing personal and social identity."

Jason Cox and Helga Dittmar, "The functions of clothes and clothing (dis)satisfaction: A gender analysis among British students" Journal of Consumer Policy 2-3 (1995) [text not available online to non-subscribers]

If you ask people about the clothes they choose to buy or wear, they will talk about aesthetics (they look good, or make the wearer look good, or feel nice), practicalities (keeps me warm, handy pockets), status (makes me look rich), and personal identity (expresses my personality). What they don't say is that it expresses their group identity.

For example, IT tekkies would consider themselves a fiercely independent and individualistic bunch who reject the norms of business fashion and wear what they, individually, want.

What then are we to make of a fashion range of geek chic like Cafe Press? It seems that, like skaters, Goths and punks before them, their individualism is expressed by wearing the same clothes as their friends.



This photograph of a group of countryside rangers and volunteers is interesting because only half of them are wearing a uniform. The others have adopted the green shirt and jeans as a form of protective coloration. Note that the only person wearing 'normal' clothes, in this context, appears as an outsider, clearly other than the rest.

I was at a large informal meeting of local government employees recently where one could immediately identify the biodiversity officers, because they wore fleeces, and the sustainability officers, because they wore woolly jumpers. People with similar interests do end up wearing similar clothes. Partly this might be explained by shared tastes, but it is also partly because we choose to dress like people we identify with. This is the power of clothes to express group identity.


However, like all such expressions, there is a price to pay. Signalling to your colleagues that you are like them also signals to others that you are different.






Time Team want to look like archaeologists.

Cornelius Holtorf quotes Mick Aston
as saying "we’re complete scruffbags but I don’t care. I’m not remotely interested in appearances, life’s too short for that”. But if you were a businessperson, would you trust them with thousands of pounds to deliver a critical part of your development?


Step 3: Are you creating the image you want?