Friday, July 25, 2008

Archaeology needs to recover its core principles and ethics
Many felt that the partisan nature of the State sector indicated that few field colleagues in the private sector would consider reporting instances of bad practice. Following the debate on Tara and several similar cases from other countries, WAC's final plenary passed the following resolution: "Noting the increasing role of the private sector/cultural resource management in the profession, the World Archaeological Congress expresses serious concern at the potential for erosion of standards and professional ethics. The congress calls for explicit inclusion of these concerns in its Code of Ethics. The congress calls on all colleagues to support those field archaeologists working in the private sector, who are striving to maintain professional standards in difficult conditions."


An opinion piece (obviously) centering mostly on Ireland and the interminable Tara road issue.

UPDATE: Response here:
MAGGIE RONAYNE'S article . . . displays a remarkably inaccurate, wildly biased, and completely unfounded perspective on the practice of archaeology, and especially commercial archaeology, in Ireland.