Re: The King in the Car Park | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Nice feature on Mike Pitts’ Digging Deeper blog. Mike concludes by saying -

“And, this is the rub, so would academia. Asking specialists to address a wider audience, during their research, forces them to think beyond the narrow confines of their immediate tasks, to see the bigger picture. It demands that they communicate in clear language, which means they have to think clearly. It encourages them (though in this case I doubt such incentive was needed) to work together, not competitively. And it asks them to think very hard about what they are going to say. For if they get it wrong, they surely will be fried.

“Sometimes the peers in the street are the ones that matter most.”

Littlestone wrote:

Sanctuary wrote:

...the keen amateur in the street who surprisingly does have a brain in his/her head and who has easy access to most of these lesser sites, sets about doing his/her own research. In their own way and without the opportunity afforded a professional archaeo or even the old antiquaries, they reach different conclusions but they are never given any credit for it because they are not seen as being qualified to do so.

That and also the fact that they can be seen as taking the wind out of the ‘professional’ sails – TMA (the book) is a classic example of that.

Ooh, how can you suggest such a thing, amateurs seen as upstarts - surely not!

To be fair there are many very generous academics and heritage professionals, they give their own time and put a hand in their pocket, and they have encouraged and supported public interest and research. What the public need though is access to information and learned journals in particular, otherwise too many spend time barking up a wrong tree.