Cambridge - local or national?

We do quite a bit of work for Cambridge, mostly for the University Archaeology Unit.   Recently Mark has been there to look at some architectural fragments, and is writing a report on them.  Some of them are from the college that was the precursor to Trinity (Michaelhouse) - curious, one thinks of it as ancient enough not to have a precursor.

Meanwhile our other Cambridge-based client, Cambridge Council Archaeology Unit, has been swallowed up by Oxford Archaeology - it has a new identity as Oxford Archaeology East (presumably Cambridge Archaeology Oxford or Oxford Archaeology: Cambridge would be too much of a mouthful and create a vague impression of the ancient antagonism).  The great march forward of the big archaeology units like Oxford and Wessex has mixed benefits.  Presumably it provides stable employment for some good archaeologists, but one of the downsides, which we've seen locally, is that the big units are often unfamiliar with the terrain and history of the area and don't realise some of the implications of the finds.   For example there is a particular type of Anglo-Saxon burial that is really quite common in Thanet, but seldom found elsewhere - so when a large unit find one while working down here they create a great song and dance about it.... while local archaeologists look on bemused and point out that 14 of them have been found already.

It's interesting really - because archaeology isn't the same everywhere and they really should write into the planning conditions a clause that requires a local archaeologist to be involved on big excavations, to ensure the contexts are better understood.  I'd love to think that all the archaeologists who work here read Ges Moody's The Archaeology of Thanet before getting stuck in - but actually, I'd rather they took on Thanet Archaeology as a consultant every time they dig up a road. 

There seems to be a thought that archaeology - like teaching, or accountancy, or management is a transferable skill that can be used identically, anywhere in the country.   I would be the last person to encourage a parochial outlook - but there is parochial expertise which needs to be used in archaeology, otherwise vital knowledge can be missed or lost.

This starts an interesting dialogue between the value of the parochial aspect of archaeology and the need for archaeologists to see things as part of a national picture. Architectural Archaeology tries to have a national view of its areas of specialisation while making use of local studies and research by more locally based archaeologists.   Similarly, it is hoped that specialist work carried out in Cambridge, will be of use to local historians and archaeologists in creating their bigger picture of the town's development.