This is on the BBC today:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/8315731.stm 

I think John Barnatt and the others who worked on "The Lead Legacy" might have something to say about Stewart Ainsworth's comment that "The impact of mining on the landscape from the Roman period onwards has never been systematically researched by archaeologists."!

I wonder how many shafts they'll find by falling into them... :devil:

---

what he means is "I have managed to secure some funding for something I don't personally know about, and the funding committee don't know either"

isn't the "peer review" process supposed, among other things, to head off this sort of duplication?

it's an interesting subject but hardly a ground-breaking investment of license fee......

---

I read it as "we need to make this sound as though nothing like it has ever been done before for the press release or no-one will pay any attention", and overlook the existence of a major award-winning project done not long ago, or for that matter the work done on early tinworking in Devon and Cornwall which if I remember rightly was carried out by the same organisation Mr. Ainsworth works for.....

As for peer review picking up that it wasn't quite the first project of its kind, that would depend very much on the wording of the grant application and what knowledge the awarding panel have, the project aims as stated on the application may have a very different slant to a quote on a press release. EH money is funding it which I don't begrudge for one moment, it's good to see they've not stopped funding industrial archaeology after their budgets got cut to pay for the olympics :curse:

---

I also note the following from the article,
>>As well as ground teams, aircraft and satellite technology will also be used to map the area. <<

Must have loadsa dosh. Not very environmentally friendly either :devil:

what, you mean they will look it up on Google Earth, and pay the "your house from the air" bloke for a couple of fly-overs?

all they need now is an academic with a comedy haircut, tatty bush-hat and a Mummerzet accent, give themselves an arbitrary 3-day time limit and they will be all set

---

The bloke you're referring to is actually a well-respected field archaeologist who learned his craft in countless muddy trenches rather than by reading about it, regardless of how he comes across on the box....

---

[http://npht.com/wordpress/2009/06/01/miner-farmer-project/l]

Here is a link to more information. Hope that you might find this useful. Happy to provide more information if the Research Paper is hard to follow.

---

but that isn't why he is on the box, is it? He is being a straight man for someone whose main claim to historic scholarship is being on Black Adder, after all :lol:

Same goes for his rotund associate, he of the hideous woolies and fly-away hair, and their Mrs Peel-wannabe partner-in-academe.

There's nothing wrong with this, the producers clearly wanted two slightly bonkers-looking archaeologists with a side-line in exuberant enthusiasm for mudddy bits of pottery, plus a glamorous blue-stocking, because that's what they felt the public would take to.

I'm sure they are playing it for all it's worth, I would in their position. I dare say they would prefer to be producing something like Terry Jones' work on English history, but you take your opportunities where you find them.

Academic life is in large part about getting funds for things you want to do, and I'm sure these three are profiting from their high profiles.


good luck to 'em, sez I :thumbup: Time Team is jolly knockabout fun for a Sunday teatime, with its predictable formula of the bloke with the ground radar doo-dah, the digging for one thing and finding something totally different, finding two broken flowerpots and extrapolating a Roman villa, then off to the pub. Yer Man Phil finding some scrap of corroded metal and pronouncing it a 9th Century Aethelreth the Impausible half-groat, never before seen, is all part of the act.


to get somewhere near the original topic, yes, this is a typical bit of PR froth. The producers are trying to give it a bit of credibility by having it fronted by an academic, rather than Peter Snow or that over-exuberant soul with the Drizabone and tatty old panama hat ( actually I've got a Drizabone, AND a tatty Panama... :blink: )

in turn, he wants to look a though he is doing something besides taking the tv companies shekels for a piece to camera, after all.

---

what, you mean they will look it up on Google Earth, and pay the "your house from the air" bloke for a couple of fly-overs?

all they need now is an academic with a comedy haircut, tatty bush-hat and a Mummerzet accent, give themselves an arbitrary 3-day time limit and they will be all set

I can see what you men but I think that will hardly the case. BTW I hadn't made the association with the TV program as I dont watch it!

On a more constructive note. I should imagine that they'll have full access to LiDAR and recent OS imagery, along with archive stuff from 30's & 40's. The side ways point I was trying to put was that with recent developments in Kite Aerial Photography this form of remote sensing has a practical part in the archaeologist's tool box, especially where the allocation of limited/low funding decides the extent of the research. It is not always plain sailing doing it but for low altitude imagery it is very easy with the correct equipment.

Apart from myself, who is an amateur, there are others in the field who have more experience. In fact one I correspond with lives and works just south of the intended project area.

Following the successful Magpie Open Day I've been asked to give a small talk on the subject to the PDMHS, which I'll make available in some form to this forum once completed.
John Barnatt has encouraged me to do more down the archaeological route and I'll be doing so this winter for him.

When making programs I can see the need to hold the viewers interest and people hanging out of aircraft fits the bill but for routine on site, day to day work of the NT & EH, they both would do well to explore the capabilities of KAP to extend research targets and budgets.

It would be nice to see a high profile project at least attempt to use KAP.

Peter.

BTW anyone visiting my web site on the subject, please note it is woefully out of date from an equipment view, I'll address this as and when I can!

I don't have any experience to speak of, of KAP. The impression I have of it, is as a method of doing a certain amount very cheaply, but that may just be because I haven't seen enough of it to know otherwise.

LiDAR, yes, very effective technique for the right application.

---

Being curious as to why the project should have provoked such a reaction, I looked at the description on the EH site http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/inspired/server/show/ConWebDoc.17299 . This may be a quicker 'heads up' than the link earlier. Isn't it the case that anything that furthers peoples interest in archaeology is a good thing, or am I being naive?
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said 'Stop! don't do it!' 'Why shouldn't I?' he said. I said, 'Well, there's so much to live for!' He said, 'Like what?' I said, 'Well...are you religious or atheist?' He said, 'Religious.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?' He said, 'Christian.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?' He said, 'Protestant.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?' He said, 'Baptist!' I said, 'Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist church of god or Baptist church of the lord?' He said, 'Baptist church of god!' I said, 'Me too! Are you original Baptist church of god, or are you reformed Baptist church of god?' He said, 'Reformed Baptist church of god!' I said, 'Me too! Are you reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?' He said, 'Reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!' I said, 'Die, heretic scum,' and pushed him off.
Let's cut Mr Ainsworth some slack.

I think the only reason it has provoked such a reaction, is that there are plenty of people on this forum who are well aware that the subject has been well covered not so long ago, by others.

it's nice that EH are still spending money on IA, but is it good value to repeat work which as far as I can see, is not new?

---

Having read the EH blurb, they're doing quite a wide-ranging research project - it's certainly the largest project ever undertaken looking at mining remains and their landscape, and better-resourced than the work which led to the Lead Legacy, which means they can study a wider range of things and with some posher tools, good luck to 'em! There are several areas around here I'd give my eye teeth to have lidar-scanned....

p.s. Peter - PM sent, someone may want some KAP work doing.

---

Will this have any effect on us going underground around the Alston Moor area does anyone know?

I think Dean and myself probably have the same forebodings. After the report is eventually published is some bureaucratic health and safety twit going to creep out of the woodwork and say that mine exploration is dangerous and is damaging ancient monuments; therefore it would be safer to cap all the shafts and seal all the entrances. But, Oh yes, let the academics have a key to further their research.
Then we will have the same situation as the Caldbeck Fells, also in Cumbria where I cannot pick up a bit of the unique mineral, Campylite to give to my enthusiastic grandson and can only watch in horror as some "researcher" with affiliations to academia comes along and fills his bag.
I'm all in favour of the research but it's the use that others may make of it.

---

I think Dean and myself probably have the same forebodings. After the report is eventually published is some bureaucratic health and safety twit going to creep out of the woodwork and say that mine exploration is dangerous and is damaging ancient monuments; therefore it would be safer to cap all the shafts and seal all the entrances. But, Oh yes, let the academics have a key to further their research.

I think you're getting paranoid - we have sites in Derbyshire that are scheduled ancient monuments for their undergound interest, in particular the Northern Dale mines, but have an open access agreement in place. There's stuff down there that is very rare and fragile tucked away in less-accessible corners but the key is easily available, and so far I'm pleased to say I've not noticed any damage in there caused by visitors.

If any holes do get locked down on Alston moor it'll be because the landowner wasn't aware of their existence before the survey and is over-cautious about liability, not because something interesting has turned up. Also, my reading of the project brief on EH's website suggests to me they weren't intending to do any underground work. I seriously doubt NHPT will be changing their access policy as a result of this project...

---