Archaeology; The Canary that was Shot halfway down the Mine.

An Artists Impression of the Stonehenge Visitors Centre that will never be.

Archaeology is known for being a canary trade, during times of economic downturns and reduced construction; archaeology tends to lose out. The only commercial work in the trade is based upon development and rescue archaeology. So the recent recession wasn’t all too healthy for the trade, the workforce dropped dramatically perhaps even by 30% during the period in the UK and has yet to even start feeling the effects of the (until the last quarter) improving economic outlook.

The effects of the recession on Archaeology have yet to be fully studied but I advise anyone to take a look at work done by Kenneth Atchison who has written several informative articles on the subject.

Archaeology, as a subject, was born in the United Kingdom and you would expect a responsible government to give it some slack when it comes to the cuts. Of course, this really isn’t the case; considered a “soft target” archaeology has face severe cuts in museums (including the Stonehenge Visitors Centre which was due to finally be made into something more than a couple of converter shipping crates), government funded research projects and the loss of development contracts as the government pulled funding from things like BSF (Building Schools for the Future). In the bonfire of the quangos English Heritage is being cut by 32%, so ⅓ of government grants to archaeology will be withdrawn. Research funding will remain static for the next four years, a significant cut when you take inflation into account and funding provided to universities for archaeology is getting cut by 100%, yes that’s right 100%.
The cut will mean that departments will be forced to charge, at minimum £7,000 per year to stand still.

So what are the implications?
With Museums set to close there is now no more room to store archaeological artifacts, producing a significant cataloguing problem. Many counties will be losing their “Archaeology Officer” so will receive no advice regarding planning permission thus making likely archaeological remains at threat.

The loss of trained and experienced individuals from the trade will be a further devastating loss as yet more jobs are being dropped.

The damage being inflicted by the cuts to Archaeology is likely to unrecoverable and, quite frankly, are going to put the trade back by something like 50 years. This is clearly another example of how this government simply have not taken into account the severe damage they are going to cause by adopting such a fast cuts programs. By damaging archaeology in this way they are going to put hundreds, if not thousands, of people out of work in this field alone, thus reducing consumer spending and damaging growth.

Archaeology may have suffered during the recession but it had just survived, now the government have decided to put a disproportionate cut on a trade because it's an "easy target".

Conclusion? The government is effectively shooting the canary that survived the mine.