Archaeologists in the UK are currently in campaigning mode. When are they not, you might ask; it is a sad fact of life that archaeologists can never relax and must continually repeat the message that our heritage is a rich resource for understanding past and present, is irreplaceable once destroyed, belongs to us all, and should not be sacrificed to short-term interests. But the message is now more urgent, because universities throughout the UK are closing their archaeology department or reducing their capacity – sadly, the current generation of university administrators seem only to care about the income from student fees, and faculties deemed not to be generating enough profit are being chopped, regardless of the excellence of their teaching and research.
The threat to university teaching is only one of the issues currently facing archaeologists. In an email to members, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) also pointed to the English Planning Bill, the Environment Bill, and the Agriculture (Wales) Act as serious matters for concern because all three propose to remove or weaken existing environmental protections (in the case of Welsh agricultural subsidies, by removing the funding that farmers currently get for positive stewardship of the historic environment).
A combined total in excess of 45,000 people have now signed petitions to save the departments of archaeology at Sheffield and Chester. CIfA and the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) are asking members to write to their constituency MP (MS in Wales) to explain the value of archaeology to the economy, the environment, and to society, and to ask them to consider supporting archaeology in relevant parliamentary/ Senedd debates. Together, the two organisations are seeking to increase media coverage of these issues by putting out as many positive news stories as possible about the discipline.
