Dear Rebecca

thanks for your thoughtful reply. I know nothing about your case in Herefordshire but I doubt very much that any academic's reputation would have been on the line for making a statement in favour of the heritage at that council meeting - if they had genuinely wanted to make such a statement.

What I think is the key point, and would need to be proven, is that humanity will really be better off in a localised economy as you describe it, or whether the current globalized market economy will not provide more benefits for everybody after all. If the latter is the case, surely the "status quo" supporting "the powerful" has something to be said for it. But is it?

Maybe you or somebody else on this list knows of a relevant study that conclusively makes the required case. I read Peter Singer's very readable and thoughtful study "One World. The Ethics of Globalization" (2002). Singer does not find conclusive evidence to condemn the globalized economy out of hand (although he does discuss ways of improving its effects on disadvantaged groups of people).

As for sustainability, the market economy takes care of scarce but valued resources through prices influenced by supply and demand. For example, we have all noticed in recent years that technologies supporting alternative fuel for cars have become successfully introduced as the petrol price went up - and we can expect further (and better) technologies to be introduced in the future. This, by the way, is not the effect of the "free" market but very much of a state-controlled market since the largest part of the petrol price (in Europe at least) is due to taxes, and rightly so.

Geoff: the irony is that the global economy has become part of local economies which resulted in the interesting outcome that the global and the local occasionally become one and the same thing. In this sense, it is precisely the point of appreciating local heritage to eat at Pizza Hut and drink coffee at Starbucks both in Rome and Vienna, or wherever.

summer greetings to you all (will try to shut up now and let others continue)

Cornelius

PS The question is not: "how many authentic, pristine bronze age burials can still exist" but "Why is the world better off with that kind of heritage rather than with another?". After all, the number of motorways of the 2000s AD is just as limited as the number of barrows from the 2000s BC.

-----
Cornelius Holtorf
PLEASE NOTE MY NEW EMAIL ADDRESS FROM 1 SEPT 2008: [log in to unmask]
 

----- Original Message -----
From: Rebecca Roseff <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008 8:51 pm
Subject: Re: [ARCH-JUSTICE] sign letter to Irish Times?

> It could be argued that archaeologists should view all 
> developments as  
> equally interesting and worthy of study and preservation, so there 
> is no reason  we 
> should put a higher value on a medieval or prehistoric landscape 
> than a new  
> motorway, supermarket or housing development.  So there is no 
> reason per se  
> to object to 21st century development obliterating heritage.  
> However 21st  
> century techniques remove things far quicker and more thoroughly 
> than was ever  
> the case before, so we are losing things at a far greater rate.  
> Landscapes  
> and heritage that have survived and slowly adapted for thousands 
> of years  are 
> gone in an instant.  All for the present day benefit.
> 
> Many people feel that society should be heading for a more 
> localised  
> economy, one where food, services, energy are produced in the  
> local region, and 
> people dont travel so much.  This type of  economy should produce 
> less CO2, and 
> more food and energy security.  It  also makes sense if petrol is 
> running out.  
> This type of economy doesn't  usually have the backing of the big 
> development 
> companies, they are still wedded  to big style things for obvious 
> reasons, 
> motorways, car parks, air ports,  shopping centres.  To shift this 
> type of 
> economy wont be easy, you wonder  how it will ever happen in fact 
> without a drastic 
> fuel or food crisis, but there  is lots of legislation that 
> advises we do 
> shift it.  Our CO2 emission  targets for one.  Archaeologists are 
> aligned with the 
> big style  development, they dont help the shift.  Many people 
> dont think 
> things  should change of course.  They think present day 
> development is fine, it 
> is  producing better life styles for people, even though 
> archaeology gets 
> destroyed  (new is created) and landscapes change (flora and fauna 
> have always  
> changed).  Archaeologists should recognise though that they are 
> helping the  
> status quo, they are with the powerful and not with the weak.  
> They are  stifling 
> change in society that could be aiming for a shift.
> 
> An example; in Herefordshire a new access road to an industrial 
> estate  
> revealed rare and extensive Neolithic features.  A local campaign 
> wanted  the road 
> stopped and the landscape protected.  Their vision was for a  
> heritage park of 
> several miles, one that could be explored by foot, bike, horse  or 
> boat (it 
> was based around the river).  The archaeology would be a  
> signature for the 
> region, attracting people, making it interesting.  The  heritage 
> park would bring 
> a different sort of development to the region  than the road to 
> the 
> industrial estate.  The road would become a green way  to the 
> archaeology.  The 
> campaign was very successful given the sort of  opposition and a 
> special council 
> meeting was called.  At this  meeting the campaign was unable to 
> find a single 
> prehistoric expert  who was prepared to say the archaeology was 
> special and 
> c/should be  preserved.  No archaeologist could risk their future 
> as their work is 
> based  on development, even academics, English Heritage and 
> Council 
> Archaeologists,  they couldn't risk their reputations. 
> 
> Archaeologists maintain the economic status quo, which is 
> voracious, and  
> probably unsustainable.
> 
> 
> Rebecca Roseff