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World Archaeology
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After the ‘gold rush’: global archaeology in
2009
Kenneth Aitchison
Available online: 07 Dec 2009
To cite this article: Kenneth Aitchison (2009): After the ‘gold rush’: global archaeology in 2009, World
Archaeology, 41:4, 659-671
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After the ‘gold rush’: global archaeology
in 2009
Kenneth Aitchison
Abstract
Archaeology in 2009 is being adversely affected by a global economic crisis. This has followed a
period of successful expansion of practice in many countries, and is now leading to reductions in
budgets and job losses. Countries that have adopted a market-facing, commercial system to deliver
archaeological management have been more seriously affected than those where the state has
retained control over this process. In many states, capital expenditure by governments on
infrastructure projects is supporting some archaeological practice. Government commitment to
funding archaeological practice is likely to be unsustainable in the long-term, and post-crisis a return
to private-sector funding of flexible commercial archaeological practice can be expected.
Keywords
Capital expenditure; commercial archaeology; development; economic crisis; employment; European
Union; infrastructure projects; job losses; pay; professional practice; recession; redundancy.
Introduction
At the time of writing (summer 2009), the global economy is being seriously affected by an
ongoing financial crisis. This was initiated through the collapse of the US sub-prime
mortgage market in 2007 (Turner 2008), and it represents only the third time that there has
been a financial crisis that has affected not just individual national economies but the
entire global economy. The first of these, often known as the Great Depression, occurred
in the 1930s and the second (which does not have an agreed name) in the 1970s (Gamble
2009: 6). The economic transformations of the current recession of the late-2000s, which
has been described as the ‘New Depression’, have directly or indirectly affected almost
every sector of commercial activity in most countries of the world. This article seeks to
review what the impacts have been on archaeological practice, exploring the differences
World Archaeology Vol. 41(4): 659–671 Debates in World Archaeology
ª2009 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online
DOI: 10.1080/00438240903363772
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between archaeology as commercialized activity and archaeology that is under direct or
indirect state control, contextualizing this through a series of case studies.
Prior to the transformation to economic decline the global economy had been
undergoing a long period of expansion, progressing inconsistently since approximately
1980 but steadily since the early 1990s, and in many states the level of construction activity
was the most visible indicator of economic growth (Turner 2008). Where archaeology is
recognized as an environmental resource and where systems are in place to ensure that
remains are recorded and interpreted as a mitigative action against the effects of
development upon this resource, the amount of archaeological work undertaken grew in
parallel with the construction boom.
This was archaeology’s ‘gold rush’ – the boom led to unprecedented amounts of
archaeological work taking place which represented fantastic opportunities both to
increase archaeological understanding and for financial advancement.
No overarching review of archaeology’s place in the globalized political economy has
yet been written. Patterson (1999) presented a studied review of the development of
archaeology within the capitalist system in the United States and the effects of twentieth-
century economic crises on professional archaeology, considering the emergence of
commercial archaeological practice in the United States (as part of cultural resource
management) to have been a consequence of legislative changes that coincided with the
transition from Keynesian to monetarist policies in response to the global economic crisis
of the 1970s.
Commercial archaeology subsequently became established on varying bases elsewhere
in the world. But, as Patterson and many others recognize, this development has
universally followed on from pre-existing, established academic approaches to archae-
ological practice, and has often led to rapid expansion of the numbers of individuals
working in archaeology without those individuals necessarily being well rewarded for their
endeavours. These factors lead to constant comparison with and criticism from the
academic sector. Archaeology has had an uncertain and initially cautious engagement with
the market – generally, where commercial archaeology has become established, it has led
to the emergence of professional associations which hark back to the social democratic
principles advocated by Willy Brandt – ‘As much market as possible, as much regulation
as necessary’ (McShane 2008). The Institute for Archaeologists’ Code of Approved Practice
for the Regulation of Contractual Arrangements in Field Archaeology (IfA 1990, current
revision 2008) supports that professional association’s disciplinary code of conduct by
providing collective guidance on how it is considered most appropriate to undertake
commercial work, while the terms of reference of the European Association of
Archaeologists’ Committee on Professional Associations in Archaeology (EAA 1999)
specify that one of its responsibilities is to ‘advise EAA how to ensure that professional
and ethical values can be used to strengthen national laws and transcend the values of the
marketplace’. These were circumspect ideas which looked admirable yet somewhat
outdated as Western governments established the post-1989 neo-liberal consensus which
allowed globalization to flourish.
By the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, commercial archaeology
was established as the norm across the English-speaking developed world – in the United
States, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, for example – and was being embraced
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elsewhere, including in many European states, particularly those that had transformed
from centrally planned economies following 1989. Elsewhere in Western Europe, state- or
semi-state-led systems were still trying to contain and directly manage the effects of rapid
economic development (cf. Demoule 2002, 2008), and across much of the developing world
no systems were yet in place to ensure archaeological recording ahead of construction or
other potentially damaging activities.
The two most visible differences between states where commercial archaeology has
become established and where it has not are exactly those identified by Patterson in 1999.
In states with commercialized archaeology, far more jobs and opportunities to work were
created – but these people are paid less, on average, than in countries where archaeology
remains under the control of the state (Aitchison 2009b: 5). This is not a balanced
equation – the opportunities that the market-led system creates mean that, in total, far
more money is spent on archaeological work and is thus earned by archaeologists working
in a commercialized environment than where the market has no direct role. The far greater
number of individuals is not outweighed by the slightly lower salaries.
The effects of the global recession upon archaeological practice
These differing approaches to market engagement have been central to the visibility of the
effects of the economic crisis on archaeological practice. To date, these have been most
heavily felt where archaeology is most involved with, and thus exposed to, the market
economy.
Archaeological work in the United Kingdom is primarily undertaken by commercial
providers on behalf of property or land developers, with this market-based system
mediated through the democratically accountable process of local spatial planning
control. This system, which has been in place in England since 1990 (DoE 1990) and across
the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom since the early 1990s, led to an ongoing
expansion of the amount of archaeological work undertaken and the number of
archaeologists employed to do this work (a growth of approximately 4.5 per cent per year
from 1997 to 2007 (Aitchison and Edwards 2008)) which persisted until the onset of the
current global economic crisis (Aitchison 2009a).
The amount of archaeological work in the United Kingdom is currently declining from
a 2007 peak, when over 5,000 archaeological investigations were undertaken in that year in
England alone. Ninety-three per cent of all archaeological reporting stemmed from
projects initiated through the spatial planning system, with one in every 124.8 applications
by developers for planning permission leading to the production of an archaeological
report (Ehren Milner pers. comm.).
There had been a gradual reduction in the number of people employed as archaeologists
from the 2007 high-water mark, but when the global economic crisis transformed from the
‘credit crunch’ that had begun in the summer of 2007 into what has been called its ‘second
phase’, accompanied by numerous banks being rescued or nationalized by governments in
the autumn of 2008, speculative building in the UK almost came to a halt. This led directly
to a significant decline in the amount of new archaeological fieldwork being undertaken, as
developers’ budgets for site investigations – all forms of geotechnical and other
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environmental evaluation work, including archaeology – have been rapidly trimmed
(Wynne 2008).
This reduction in work has led directly to redundancies. While an estimated 6,865
people were working in all areas of archaeological employment in the UK in the summer
of 2007 (Aitchison and Edwards 2008), this total declined by 10 per cent over the period
from August 2007 to 1 April 2009 (Aitchison 2009c). This effectively represents the loss of
one in six jobs in UK commercial archaeology, with many companies shedding staff and
some firms going out of business.
Simultaneously with jobs being lost and businesses closing, the number of people
looking to study archaeology in the UK is increasing. UCAS (Universities and Colleges
Admissions Service) reports that 10,505 potential students have applied to start
undergraduate degrees in the combined category of archaeology (in humanities or as a
physical science) and forensic science for academic year 2009–10, an increase of 8 per
cent over the previous year (UCAS 2009). Typically, about one-quarter of that total
will be accepted onto degree courses. This is not particular to archaeology – these
figures represent an overall trend of increasing university applications for all subjects,
as many people are seeing higher education as a route both to improve their
employability and as a respite from the labour market for a few years at a difficult
time (in total, the number of applicants for all subjects increased by 9.7 per cent for
2009–10 over 2008–9).
In Ireland, the effects of the downturn have been even more severe. By the first years of
the twenty-first century, Irish archaeology had grown at a remarkable rate – the number of
archaeological excavations per annum had increased to forty times the level of the mid-
1980s (UCD 2006: 15–16) – and this was fuelled particularly by state infrastructure
projects and then increasingly by private investment. The number of archaeologists
working in Ireland grew even faster than in the UK, increasing from 650 in 2002 to 1,709
in 2007 (McDermott and La Piscopia 2008: 5) – and then ‘between July 2008 and January
2009 there was a 52% reduction in the total number of archaeological staff employed in
Ireland . . . an 82% reduction in contract [commercial] archaeologists employed in the
same period’ (Eogan and Sullivan 2009).
This dramatic decline was not entirely unforeseen: The Future Demand for
Archaeologists in Ireland (CHL 2002) identified that growth in the sector was strongly
linked to the state’s National Development Plan 2000–6 and in particular to the funding of
the National Roads Authority (NRA)’s roadbuilding scheme – and recognized that ‘there
is a temporary balloon in demand resulting from the rapid implementation of the roads
programme under the NRA. It is envisaged that the major new inter-urban routes will be
completed or well-advanced by 2007, following which the level of demand for
archaeological consultants will fall’ (CHL 2002: 32).
The other Western European state where commercial archaeology has been vigorously
adopted is the Netherlands, as Dutch archaeology has actively embraced the philosophies
underpinning the systems used elsewhere in the English-speaking West (Willems 2005).
Following a period of heavy state regulation, Dutch archaeology engaged with the
commercial system in the late 1990s (Van den Dries and Willems 2007: 50) and, by 2008,
90 per cent of archaeological work was developer funded and being undertaken by
commercial firms (Bakker et al. 2009). After a period of near full employment for young,
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aspirant archaeologists, archaeology has been adversely affected by an abrupt decline in
housing construction, but this has not led to a dramatic downturn in archaeological work
such as has been seen in Ireland and the UK. While commercial companies are facing
cashflow problems and may be reducing the number of staff they have working for them,
assessment work continues for infrastructure projects and the situation (although
unpredictable) is not expected to become much worse (Bakker et al. 2009).
Outside Europe, Altschul and Patterson (forthcoming) estimate that approximately
11,350 people worked as professional archaeologists in the United States in 2008, with
spending on cultural resource management being between US$600m (e425m) and $1bn
(e705m). However, even as those data were being compiled, it was recognized that while
the national economy slowed there was a decline of archaeological job growth in some
regions and job losses in others.
The American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA) has published the results of
research it undertook in March 2009 into the effects of the economic decline on cultural
resource management practitioners (ACRA 2009). This showed convincingly that the
majority of commercial practices that responded to this survey had experienced decrease in
business over the previous six months and that more expected to decline rather than grow
in the six months from that date. A repeat of this survey in September 2009 (ACRA
forthcoming) confirmed that this trend was ongoing, with twice as many ACRA member
businesses experiencing a decline than had experienced an increase in trade over the six
months to the survey date.
While US state expenditure on archaeology is likely to remain constant, or even to
increase slightly, through the indirect benefits of economic stimulus packages for
infrastructure and renewable energy projects, private-sector spending is falling and Jeff
Altschul (pers. comm.) expects ‘about a 20% drop in CRM spending in the U.S. to
somewhere around $750–$800m [e530m–e565m]’.
By contrast, the Australian economy has not dipped into recession (Roubini 2009),
largely because of ongoing demand for natural resources from China. This has meant that
commercial archaeology, which in that country is funded significantly by both
construction and the minerals extraction industry, has been able to remain only lightly
influenced by the effects of the economic crisis.
There are numerous states where archaeology is less exposed to market forces than in
the anglophone area. This is particularly true where commercial archaeology does exist,
but has been heavily funded by national or transnational expenditure, such as in the
central European states that joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007.
In these countries, recent and ongoing heavy investments by the EU’s structural funds
have been significant. Objective 1 of the structural funds, ‘supporting development in
less prosperous regions’ aims to ‘narrow the gap between the development levels of the
various regions’ (EC 2008). Transport projects are a particular priority of this
programme, with environmental protection an obligatory part of any funded projects
– and so this has supported a great deal of archaeological work. The end of the 2000–6
programmes, from which Ireland noticeably benefited, was a major factor in the
reduction of archaeological work in that country; with new states joining the European
Union in 2004 and 2007, structural funds are being targeted at supporting development
in those states.
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The biggest archaeological projects in Hungary have been funded in large part by
the European Union, which continues to ‘insure’ archaeologists against the worst of
the economic effect, and in Slovenia the levels of fieldwork are declining, but this is
more the consequence of the end of a series of major road-building projects than due
to the direct effects of the global situation. Czech archaeology has not yet been
seriously affected by the economic downturn – the level of archaeological work remains
unchanged from 2008, although while major projects continue, fewer new projects are
being planned – again, with the exception of projects funded by the European Union
(road infrastructure or reconstructions of monument presentation and access).
However, developers are actively seeking to reduce the cost of archaeological work,
and the danger of clients defaulting on payments is increasing.
In Romania, where, again, archaeological work has been driven by large-scale
infrastructure projects, the number of archaeological investigations peaked in 2006
(figures from Romanian Ministry of Cultural and Religious Affairs quoted by Bors¸and
Damian 2009) with budgets now becoming increasingly uncertain as major delays to road-
building projects are seriously affecting archaeological work.
In Poland, there has also been a general reduction in the amount of construction work
being undertaken, a situation which has been compounded as Polish archaeology has been
suffering from organizational crisis over the last three years following a constitutional
ruling that gives primacy to a landowner’s rights over the public benefit of archaeological
investigation (Kobylinski 2008). Generally, the sector is being mostly focused on ongoing
infrastructure work projects which are not affected by this specific issue. A great deal of
this is targeted on the preparations for the 2012 European Football Championships which
will be hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine, but other infrastructure projects are being
delayed or suspended, which is leading to a decline in the amount of archaeological work
being undertaken with consequential effects on the numbers of people working in
archaeology (Marciniak and Pawleta 2009).
Other states have adopted a mixed-economy approach to archaeology, where the state
retains the most significant role but private enterprise also plays a considerable part. To a
certain degree this is the case in the central European states discussed above, where
transformation has typically taken place from state-led archaeological systems to those
whereby management is achieved through semi-state ‘national archaeological institutes’
and fieldwork is undertaken by private firms.
Across Germany, there is no single national system as the structural basis of
archaeology varies regionally. Each of the La
¨nder (federal states) sets its own legislation
and structure, which means that the levels of private enterprise activity and market
engagement are not universal. While some La
¨nder maintain a state monopoly on
archaeological work, others are more open to active market engagement (this is frequently
the case in the La
¨nder in the eastern parts of Germany). This means that, historically,
‘some ‘‘poor’’ states [within Germany], like Sachsen-Anhalt, invest [relatively] much more
money in archaeology (heritage management) than some ‘‘rich’’ states (like Bavaria,
Hessen or Baden-Wu
¨rttemberg)’ (Dirk Krausse pers. comm.).
This variable approach may have contributed to the feeling that recent economic growth
has not necessarily led to positive effects in German archaeology; German (and Austrian)
archaeologists were the most cautious across the twelve states that participated in the
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Discovering the Archaeologists of Europe project when reporting past growth and
anticipated future growth in 2007–8 (Aitchison 2009b: 13–14).
Where it is exposed to the market, archaeological practice in Germany is suffering
negative effects. The Federal government in Germany announced a significant
infrastructure package in December 2008 (Ashurst 2009), which has the potential to
support large amounts of archaeological work. Where state monopolies exist for
archaeological work and this stimulus package has effect, the numbers of people working
in archaeology may (temporarily) increase.
Similarly to Germany there is no national system for archaeological heritage management
in Spain, as this is devolved to a regional level, and here too the levels of state and com-
mercial involvement in the process vary on a case-by-case basis. As in many other countries,
the archaeological sector being adversely impacted upon as it is closely tied to a construction
sector which is being seriously compromised by the economic crisis (Parga-Dans 2009).
Since 2001, the French state has adopted a ‘polluter pays’ approach to archaeology,
ensuring that the developer responsible for damaging an archaeological resource is held
financially accountable for their actions. Rather than leaving the delivery of this to market
forces (as in the anglophone states), a system of hypothecated taxation has been
introduced which funds a semi-state agency (INRAP) to undertake evaluation work
(Demoule 2008). At the most immediate of levels, this has been a relative success – the number
of people working in French archaeology rose by 50 per cent over eight years, from 2,068 in
2001 (Rubio and Bernard 2001) to 3,131 in 2009, with private enterprise now being tolerated
in a minor role (14 per cent of archaeologists in France work for ‘enterprises prive
´es’) (Giraud
2009). Two weaknesses of this system are the obligation upon all developers – regardless of
their choice of site – to pay into the hypothecated fund which finances the archaeological
evaluation work and the limited choice available to the developers when it comes to
mitigation. At this stage, INRAP, which had undertakes the evaluation work, then also
specifies what (if any) further mitigation work has to be undertaken. The cost of this is not
decided through the precise, formulaic manner whereby the evaluation costs are predicted,
but this is left to market forces – and in many parts of France, INRAP is either the only or the
most significant ‘contractor’ available to undertake this work. This system has evolved
significantly from its inception and the establishment of the underpinning law in 2001, as
earlier weaknesses have been attacked and exploited by political opponents of the system,
leading to the law of 2001 having been twice reviewed in 2003 and 2004 (Demoule 2004).
Comparably with France and some parts of Germany, Japanese archaeology is
dominated by non-commercial enterprises. These are normally based within local or
provincial government, and, while they are in part funded by private investment, the
financial income streams are overwhelmingly of state origin (in 2007, only 16 per cent of
archaeological funding came from private investment, with public development making up
the balance (Agency for Cultural Affairs 2009: 17)).
Japan has been facing an ongoing national economic crisis dating back to the 1990s,
which is being compounded by the current global situation, but the lack of direct exposure
to the market – both in terms of income and in terms of the near-absence of economic
competition between archaeological organizations – may have contributed to the numbers
working in archaeology declining only relatively slowly. From a 1997 peak of 132.1bn yen
(e950m), spending on development-led archaeology had fallen to 72.4bn yen (e520m) in
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2007 (Agency for Cultural Affairs 2009: 17), and the numbers employed in archaeology
(ibid.: 1) peaked in 2000 at 7,111 individuals; by 2008, this total had reduced to 6,255, an
annual decline of 1.1 per cent (contrasting with a decline in income of 45 per cent over ten
years, or 4.5 per cent per annum). This steady decline has meant that there has effectively
been a freeze on recruitment into professional archaeology, leading to a ‘lack of social
metabolism’ (Katsuyuki Okamura pers. comm.) with few opportunities for young
archaeologists and a reduction in the numbers studying the subject with the intention of
making a career in the profession.
Work in Cypriot archaeology is almost exclusively undertaken by the state through the
Department of Antiquities. There has perhaps been a slight decrease in construction
leading to less demand for fieldwork, although because of European Commission-funded
projects the Department of Antiquities is planning to increase its roster of fieldworkers. In
general, by the summer of 2009, the economic effects of the crisis had not yet seriously
affected Cyprus, although reduction in tourist income will have a knock-on effect on the
whole economy. The organizational situation is similar in Turkey where archaeologists
can work only for a limited range of state or municipally funded organizations and, while
the amount of work being undertaken is currently lower than in recent years, this appears
to be more related to non-publication leading to restrictions on the numbers of excavation
permits being granted than to the overall economic situation.
What gold rush?
In many of the developing countries of the world, the credit boom of the late twentieth–
early twenty-first centuries did not have a significant and direct effect upon archaeological
practice, and so the effects of the subsequent crisis have not been direct either. In most
Caribbean states there is little relationship between development and archaeological work,
so any reduction in construction has not affected the (already low) levels of archaeological
work. Long-term research projects are still ongoing, many of which are university-led, and
where local archaeological ‘units’ exist, such as in Antigua, the effects have been relatively
minor (Nigel Sadler pers. comm.).
Nigeria can be seen as typical of many West African countries, where commercial
archaeology is non-existent and no archaeological work is done in response to
construction. This means that, as there never was an archaeological gold rush, there
were and are very few jobs in archaeology – and these are not being affected by global
economics (Adebayo Folorunso pers. comm.).
Capital expenditure
Governments are now using a series of fiscal tools to attempt to mitigate the worst effects
of the economic crisis, often looking to increase the fluidity of money supply through
quantitative easing and to increase state investment in infrastructure projects to support
and rejuvenate construction (capital expenditure). This can, and has, supported archae-
ological work.
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Historically, Norway has a tradition of supporting cultural heritage through investment at
times of economic hardship. In the current crisis, there have so far been few negative effects on
archaeological work in Norway, where the system is heavily state regulated and
simultaneously the state is extensively protecting the Norwegian building industry. The
Norwegian government invested 225m NOK (e26m) in February 2009 in construction with
the aim of avoiding unemployment (Inger Karlberg pers. comm.). This has specifically
involved the conservation of protected buildings, monuments and sites, and 25m NOK
(e2.9m) will be spent on accessibility and conservation of sites and monuments (this
compares with a total spend from all sources on archaeological excavation in Norway in 2008
of 104.7m NOK (e12.0m)), and, rather than seeing a decline in the amount of work done,
government spending has (at least temporarily) led to more archaeological work.
The first application of capital expenditure to support archaeology was in the United
States in the 1930s through President F.D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. This led to extensive
excavation and post-excavation programmes in advance of the Tennessee Valley
Authority’s dam building programme (Jameson 2004).
In the United Kingdom, the Communities Programme of the Manpower Services
Commission (MSC) funded significant amounts of fieldwork and post-excavation in the late
1970s and 1980s. This was an unemployment reduction tool which supported jobless people
in doing socially valuable work, which was deemed to include archaeology. This was so
enthusiastically embraced by the archaeological sector (then in a nascent commercial phase)
that for a time the MSC effectively became the major funder of archaeological work (Sheldon
1986) and this led to an overall increase in the number of individuals ‘working’ in
archaeology.
Also in response to the financial crisis of the 1970s and its ongoing effects into the 1980s,
there were numerous state programmes to reduce unemployment in Germany, the most
significant of which for archaeology was the ABM (Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen), which
continued post-1989 in the eastern La
¨nder (of the former German Democratic Republic).
Capital expenditure is currently being used again by governments to ease the effects of
the economic situation upon archaeology. As noted above, the Norwegian government is
directly funding archaeological work, while in many other countries – including the United
States, United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and Germany – state funding of
infrastructure work is leading to consequential archaeological work.
The ACRA surveys (2009, forthcoming) referred to above also asked about levels of
confidence that cultural resource management businesses in the US had that they would
benefit from federal economic stimulus legislation (The American Reinvestment and
Recovery Act, signed into law by President Obama on 17 February 2009), to which the
majority of respondents to the March 2009 survey replied that they thought they would
benefit, either directly or indirectly; by the date of the September 2009 survey, nearly 50
per cent of respondents felt that they had benefited.
Late in 2008, the UK government announced that it would bring forward £700m
(e825m) in capital spending for road and rail projects (Klettner 2008), and archaeology
has directly benefited from this in at least one instance. The A46 trunk road between
Newark and Widmerpool in Nottinghamshire follows the line of a significant Roman
road, the Fosse Way, and it is being upgraded using this funding. This opportunity led to
two of the largest commercial companies in UK archaeology forming a consortium,
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Cotswold Wessex Archaeology, in March 2009 to undertake the evaluatory and mitigative
work required (Wessex Archaeology 2009). The establishment of this project has led to a
slowing in the rate of job losses in British archaeology in summer 2009 (Aitchison 2009d):
while many firms continued to lose staff, several of the larger firms that have been able to
become involved in this and other comparable projects have been taking people on.
However, this is not translating into overall business confidence – one respondent to that
survey wrote that ‘I think there is a blip of major infrastructure jobs that the government
has rushed through to breathe some life into the economy, but it is difficult to see these
extending much into 2010 – I think therefore that the [archaeological] economy will falter
or become stagnant in 2010)’ (Aitchison 2009d: 5).
Conclusions
Where archaeological practice is tied to development – wherever it is recognized that the
archaeological resource is threatened by changing land use and there is a duty for that
resource to be recorded or preserved – there are opportunities for archaeologists to work,
and through that work to add to the sum total of human knowledge about the past. Where
these opportunities have been created and sustained through market economies, the global
financial crisis has severely damaged archaeology’s capacity as a profession to deliver that
knowledge and understanding.
Some erroneous ideas have been attached to the fact that because, historically,
archaeology has been able to access some of the funding from capital expenditure projects,
the economic crisis is in some way good for archaeology (Merrony and Eisenburg 2009).
In the past, where capital expenditure reached archaeology, it was for the purposes of
reducing unemployment rather than for furthering archaeological research and where it is
currently being applied to support archaeology it is providing an alternative, replacement
source of income that may or may not sustain archaeologists in their work.
Some states have, prior to the onset of the current economic situation, deliberately
sought to avoid market exposure through retaining control over both the management and
execution of archaeological work, and these are currently appearing to be less seriously
affected by the pressures of the crisis than the commercial systems. This is likely to be
because governments react more slowly to economic impacts than markets do, and so the
effects on state services are likely to be delayed both in impact and recovery and thus these
cannot necessarily be seen as coping better with the crisis. Indeed, these effects on state
services and budgets are likely to continue to be felt long after recovery has begun in other
sectors.
These are extraordinary times, when the states with the most significant financial
services sectors in the world – the United States and the United Kingdom – have resorted
to nationalizing banks and increasing taxation in order to cope with the strains upon their
economies, and so these are extraordinary times for archaeology too.
In times both ordinary and extraordinary, commercial archaeology has operated in
an alternative role separate from the rest of the archaeological economy. Unlike state,
semi-state or municipal systems, it can be intensely competitive, fast moving and
innovative, and, with archaeologists who understand calculating margins, taking risks and
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exploiting opportunities, far more was achieved in the face of the challenges of expanding
economies pre-crisis than the alternative model ever could hope to have done. Now, in the
time of shrinking economies, national support for cumbersome state-based systems
temporarily appears to be the best way forward in some parts of the world, but this is
unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term as governments will choose to transfer or
return the financial responsibilities for funding archaeological investigation to the private
sector. Post-crisis systems for the management of the archaeological resource will need to
be entrepreneurial, flexible and responsive, and these are the attitudes and characteristics
of commercial archaeology that will lead to the sector’s recovery.
Acknowledgements
The author appreciates advice he has received from many colleagues in compiling this
overview. The information and opinions they have provided have been invaluable, but
responsibility for any errors or misinterpretations rests entirely with himself. Thanks to:
Efthymia Alphas, Jeff Altschul, Corina Bors¸, Laura Farquharson, Adebayo Folorunso, Jan
Frolik, Tim Howard, Inger Karlberg, Dirk Krausse, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Ehren Milner,
William Moss, Mihaily Nagy, Yumiko Ogawa, Katsuyuki Okamura, Elif Ozer, Eva Parga-
Dans, Vesna Pintaric, Nigel Sadler, Mark Spanjer, Eoin Sullivan, Monique van den Dries
and all the participants to the stimulating debate at the Archaeology and the Global Crisis:
Multiple Impacts, Possible Solutions session at the fifteenth Annual Conference of the
European Association of Archaeologists held in Riva del Garda on 17 September 2009. He
also wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article whose insightful comments
prompted some important revisions.
Institute for Archaeologists, UK
kenneth.aitchison@archaeologists.net
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Kenneth Aitchison is Head of Projects and Professional Development at the Institute for
Archaeologists, the professional association for archaeologists in the UK. His role is to
develop and lead projects that research and promote best professional practice for
archaeologists. He has worked extensively on the collection and analysis of data relating to
the archaeological labour market, and previously worked as an archaeological contractor
and consultant in Britain, France and various other European and south-west Asian
countries. He writes here in a personal capacity.
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