Ha ha
So YOU think we're not central, but that, as you say is an Anglocentric
view.
Not only are we currently in the throws of a ginormous training dig, but a
team from University of Southern Maine arrives to carry out survey for the
second year running (with 2-3 lecturers and assorted students) in a couple
of weeks. We're also working with Roskilde Ship Museum and involving
Copenhagen and Arhus students as well as Danish staff, doing
excavation/survey.
Meanwhile I've been invited to Barbados in January to speak at an
educational event, (I gest not), "selling" potential educational projects to
interested parties from all over the world.
So sorry Anglophiles - face it, we ARE the centre of the world!!
Cheers
Val
Val Turner
Regional Archaeologist, Shetland
Shetland Amenity Trust
Garthspool
Lerwick
Shetland ZE1 ONY
01595 694688
-----Original Message-----
From: Issues related to Sites & Monuments Records
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Wardle, Chris (DSD)
Sent: 04 July 2003 13:21
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Research Digs in Britain
Hi,
It's Friday lunchtime and time for some musing on my behalf that perhaps
colleague up and down Britain might provide answers.
As far as I'm aware there are relatively few research excavations in this
country. Those that there are mainly training digs often carried out in the
furthest flung corners of these isles (e.g. Shetlands and the Orkney -Yes I
know this is Anglocentric. Apologies for those of you in the Highlands and
the Isles who think themselves as being more central.) at the back end of
the summer term. During the vac. many of the academics who run these digs
decamp to more exotic locations in order to further their special research
topics. Many go to the Med. but some go even further afield (e.g. South
America, and in one recently publicised case Madagascar)
I don't have a problem with academics carrying out their research elsewhere,
but was wondering how rare it is for archaeologists from overseas to come to
Britain, with a bunch students, to dig or survey British monuments. I cannot
recall one instance. Does anyone out there know of a case?
Iif as, I suspect, it is the case, such instances are quite rare, why is
this so? Surely there are few areas that would not benefit from research
excavations. Are so insular that we don't permit foreign researchers? Or is
British archaeology so unattractive to overseas archaeologists?
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