This is my first blog post, and it will probably be a short one - I am not used to this yet. Hopefully in the future they will be more coherent, and more relevant to the title of the blog.
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Last Friday I found myself entirely disgruntled, and unusually this disgruntlement was actually being caused by archaeology; or rather my lack of doing any. Having recently graduated from an MA in the Archaeology of Buildings from York, I had hoped to be able to write about something terribly interesting and archaeological that I was working on, on the Day of Archaeology. Sadly due to a relative lack of experience in the field, coupled with 'the current climate' I am not yet properly employed within the field of archaeology in any way. At the moment I fill my time volunteering at a local company dealing with the conservation of the built environment on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which has so far been excellent experience, if slightly 'in at the deep end'. On Thursdays and Fridays I essentially bankroll this activity by working as a forklift driver and generally all round helpful person at a local family owned builders yard that I have worked at on and off since the age of 14. It's not bad work. I get fresh air, a certain amount of exercise, and I get to have fun on machines like this:
And to be honest I am well aware that there are those much less fortunate than myself when it comes to work, and that I am lucky to be able to waltz back into the builders yard and get some paid employment, whilst being able to afford to volunteer and gain that all importance experience!
As I am sure you will appreciate however, it's not exactly what I had/have in mind for my glowing archaeological or heritage based career. In fact many of the people I encounter on a day to day basis are the very people we as a sector are trying to educate and steer towards a more conservation aware approach. Some are even openly hostile to the idea of conservation, and consider archaeologists to be interfering and a pain in the backside. The discussions can be fun sometimes - although occasionally they veer off tangentially towards other controversial subjects. Whether the moon landings were faked. The Pyramids at Giza were clearly constructed by aliens. The finer points of British foreign policy over the last 200 years! The lost treasure of the Knight's Templar hidden in an island somewhere off Canada (apparently, I don't know). The list could go on. I digress horribly. The upshot of all this is that on Friday, the Day of Archaeology, I wasn't doing any. I was sat on the forklift during a quiet moment checking out what other people were up to, and feeling decidedly down about my lack of actual participation. There were some excellent blogs being posted by various people in the profession on the Day of Archaeology website and elsewhere, and it was a bit galling not to be slightly more involved than the odd 'retweet' or 'that's interesting' comment. This irritation, and the fact it was an incredibly slow day, got me thinking. I was going to find a way that my activities that day could be made relevant to archaeology.
When I got home I started to think about what 'archaeology' is. It is, in one respect, the study of human activity from whatever era, through material evidence. There is an awful lot of material evidence in the builders yard I work in - although this aerial photograph makes it look rather tidy:
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| MJ Ryalls Building Supplies, Stotfold. |
By working there, I am contributing to the archaeological record of this particular builders yard. In some cases I expect the activities within this yard will perplex the archaeologists of the 31st Century. For instance, why did we ceremonially burn so much stuff in one corner (I do sometimes ask myself the same question):
What is the significance of the different coloured slabs of cement based material? What can the 21st Century society's preoccupation with poor quality concrete paving slabs and naff timber decking tell us about that era? Is this typical of builders merchants in the 21st Century? Is the juxtaposition of a typical local, family owned builders merchants with its stock of mass produced non-regional building materials indicative of small businesses adapting to meet the demands of the insatiable development friendly culture of the early 21st Century? Obviously I'm being slightly tongue in cheek throughout, but the point remains; my place of work is constantly adding to the archaeology of the 21st Century construction industry, even if only in a very small and insignificant way when looked at within the bigger picture. (Interestingly, the main buildings of the shop and sheds were, I think, originally a print works; evidence of which remains if you look closely - so there is something for buildings archaeologists too!).
So when people think of archaeology as 'stuff from the past' buried underground or hidden within an historic building or something like that then of course they are partially correct. But they must also remember that archaeology is being created, right now, all around us. "Archaeology is rubbish". It is often the things that past generations have thought unimportant, worthless and insignificant that we now find most interesting and insightful. It's worth bearing that in mind when you next throw something away!
When I said I wasn't involved in the Day of Archaeology then, I lied. It just wasn't obvious to me at first, sat glumly on a damp forklift. And from my perspective it is perhaps slightly satisfying, if not immediately useful, that I have possibly created some work for an archaeologist in the future. I expect they'll need all the help they can get!
(P.S. I also went home and finished making some 1m and 2m photographic scale poles in an effort to provide myself with more of the tools an archaeologist might find useful. Hopefully next year they will feature in a beautifully presented write up of the project I will be involved with!).
