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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Dec 03, 2012, 14:55
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True. It's pure entertainment with a prehistoric-site-respect spin-off. I just thought I'd point out that I'm accused of being too old and tweedy and closed minded for this forum but so, maybe, is it's founder! Or at least, he recognises there's a dividend in not pushing the weird agenda. Bottom line, if we want archaeos here it ain't gonna happen as things stand is it? I regret that. I'd prefer it if there were.
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Evergreen Dazed 1881 posts |
Dec 03, 2012, 15:06
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nigelswift wrote: Evergreen Dazed wrote: We should continue down the 'right' path with open discussion, and "all views matter". "I feel sure there must be plenty of archaeos who love the 'weird' side of this subject." Maybe. But Mr Cope recognises there is sometimes great merit in silence - for when asked "What is the strangest experience you've had whilst out walking on the Ridgeway? " he replied.... "If I answered this question honestly, I'd be ridiculed in the tabloids and gain an even higher profile in Private Eye's Pseuds Corner than I already have. " and his reward is that he HAS been taken seriously and he was able to write.... "The Modern Antiquarian had a marvellous response from archaeologists, and I was asked to speak at Southhampton, Manchester, Aberdeen and Glasgow universities. Mark Gillings, who recently discovered the Beckhampton Avenue, asked me to sign his copy and said that they even teach my 'Silbury Game' at Leicester. Timothy Darvill, the editor of Antiquity and The Archaeologist, asked me to write for both magazines, and I'm now in constant contact with Aubrey Burl, who recently suggested that I write a book on Callanish. Ronald Hutton of Bristol University is the foremost scholar of pre-Christian Britain, and he called The Modern Antiquarian, "the best popular guide to Neolithic and Bronze Age sites for half a century." So that's it. He deliberately kept away from stuff that might capsize his project and gained academic respect. Whereas his TMA website.... I see the point, but the problem I have with this is the suggestion that we 'don't talk' about our real experiences (Cope is saying he honestly had a genuine experience on the ridgeway) but we cover it up because of the fear we will not be taken seriously, or be able to publish a book. I can see it may be a case of 'needs must when the devil drives' in order for Cope to get his book out there, but to really change public perception about these matters we need 'brave' authors and publishers and people from the establishment (archaeologists, I suppose) to be 'bold' themselves and come onto places like this forum and engage in the discussion as it is in the real world, not avoid it because of their own fear of being 'labelled'. I'm certainly not slagging Cope, and I can see his book contributing perhaps to a change by increment rather than a big revolution, but sweeping genuine experience under the rug and presenting a more 'acceptable' face of the alternative is just a little disappointing to my mind. Having said that, elements of the essays in TMA are pretty out there and the comments above by people like Burl suggest exactly what I said earlier, that a lot of archaeologists became archaeologists because of their interest in the mysterious nature of the subject.
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bladup 1986 posts |
Edited Dec 03, 2012, 15:16
Dec 03, 2012, 15:12
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nigelswift wrote: Evergreen Dazed wrote: We should continue down the 'right' path with open discussion, and "all views matter". "I feel sure there must be plenty of archaeos who love the 'weird' side of this subject." Maybe. But Mr Cope recognises there is sometimes great merit in silence - for when asked "What is the strangest experience you've had whilst out walking on the Ridgeway? " he replied.... "If I answered this question honestly, I'd be ridiculed in the tabloids and gain an even higher profile in Private Eye's Pseuds Corner than I already have. " and his reward is that he HAS been taken seriously and he was able to write.... "The Modern Antiquarian had a marvellous response from archaeologists, and I was asked to speak at Southhampton, Manchester, Aberdeen and Glasgow universities. Mark Gillings, who recently discovered the Beckhampton Avenue, asked me to sign his copy and said that they even teach my 'Silbury Game' at Leicester. Timothy Darvill, the editor of Antiquity and The Archaeologist, asked me to write for both magazines, and I'm now in constant contact with Aubrey Burl, who recently suggested that I write a book on Callanish. Ronald Hutton of Bristol University is the foremost scholar of pre-Christian Britain, and he called The Modern Antiquarian, "the best popular guide to Neolithic and Bronze Age sites for half a century." So that's it. He deliberately kept away from stuff that might capsize his project and gained academic respect. Whereas his TMA website.... "If I answered this question honestly, I'd be ridiculed in the tabloids and gain an even higher profile in Private Eye's Pseuds Corner than I already have. " says it all - he knows he'd be ridiculed, but like i've said to you before - read some of the far out things he has said over the years [esp the music lyrics], and if there's things he's not saying where's the good in that? because it means he's acting and no-way been true to himself, he should have more faith in himself and fuck what "they" think of him and think more about the future [when his so called far out ideas won't be far out at all].
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bladup 1986 posts |
Dec 03, 2012, 15:18
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nigelswift wrote: True. It's pure entertainment with a prehistoric-site-respect spin-off. I just thought I'd point out that I'm accused of being too old and tweedy and closed minded for this forum but so, maybe, is it's founder! Or at least, he recognises there's a dividend in not pushing the weird agenda. Bottom line, if we want archaeos here it ain't gonna happen as things stand is it? I regret that. I'd prefer it if there were. Julian not weird, Ha ha ha.
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Dec 03, 2012, 15:21
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It comes back again to whether to compartmentalise or not to compartmentalise doesn't it? There are clear advantages to both strategies. Mr Cope kept the book compartmentalised and thereby earned respect in some quarters but disappointment from you! What's a poor bloke to do? The Portal has a compartment in which some of the inhabitants are as mad as a box of frogs. (Am I allowed to say that? Probably not. So I apologise to all frogs). So compartmentalising CAN be done. Does the rest of the Portal gain academic respect and attention as a result? I'd hazard a guess yes. It's all academic though as it just isn't going to happen here.
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thesweetcheat 6218 posts |
Dec 03, 2012, 15:23
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Craig Weatherhill has been on TMA a few times, I wish he'd come more often because he probably knows more about West Cornwall's sites than anyone else. I think people (including archaeos, who are just people too!) may be put off TMA by other things than any kind of "out there" discussions though.
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Rhiannon 5291 posts |
Dec 03, 2012, 15:25
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Isn't archaeology one of those awkward disciplines that won't fit into art or science though? That some archaeologists are doing lots of painstaking physical evidence-collecting of types of soil, bits of pots, remains of people's dinners, using new technology to analyse these things in new ways etc. That's the science. The interpretation of those results, that can be all statistical and sciencey too. But because archaeology is the traces of people, and people do things other than just live and exist in a certain place (with their ideas and their cultures and their societies) that just talking about types of bones isn't enough to describe what might have been going on. So you have people like Darvill who try to imagine the workings inside the mind perhaps, to try and imagine how someone would interpret abit of landscape at the time. But both those approaches are trying to use evidence, or hints of evidence, to tell us about the past. Whether you personally had a weird experience somewhere is neither here nor there. That's just a one-off anecdote (interesting though it may be to someone who likes stories about fairies, I'm not knocking weirdness). But weirdness is only really relevant if a place drums up weirdness for most anybody visiting that place - surely?? Like if it has a strange sound. Or unnatural-looking sculptural forms. Or does something weird in the landscape (like the silbury game aforementioned). Or is something weird in the landscape. That is why archaeologists don't want to engage with weird anecdotes on forums, most of it isn't a lead about what really happened in prehistory, and if you're going to write a paper*, you'll be wanting some firm evidence. *no papers = no money = no papers.
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bladup 1986 posts |
Dec 03, 2012, 15:26
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Evergreen Dazed wrote: nigelswift wrote: Evergreen Dazed wrote: We should continue down the 'right' path with open discussion, and "all views matter". "I feel sure there must be plenty of archaeos who love the 'weird' side of this subject." Maybe. But Mr Cope recognises there is sometimes great merit in silence - for when asked "What is the strangest experience you've had whilst out walking on the Ridgeway? " he replied.... "If I answered this question honestly, I'd be ridiculed in the tabloids and gain an even higher profile in Private Eye's Pseuds Corner than I already have. " and his reward is that he HAS been taken seriously and he was able to write.... "The Modern Antiquarian had a marvellous response from archaeologists, and I was asked to speak at Southhampton, Manchester, Aberdeen and Glasgow universities. Mark Gillings, who recently discovered the Beckhampton Avenue, asked me to sign his copy and said that they even teach my 'Silbury Game' at Leicester. Timothy Darvill, the editor of Antiquity and The Archaeologist, asked me to write for both magazines, and I'm now in constant contact with Aubrey Burl, who recently suggested that I write a book on Callanish. Ronald Hutton of Bristol University is the foremost scholar of pre-Christian Britain, and he called The Modern Antiquarian, "the best popular guide to Neolithic and Bronze Age sites for half a century." So that's it. He deliberately kept away from stuff that might capsize his project and gained academic respect. Whereas his TMA website.... I see the point, but the problem I have with this is the suggestion that we 'don't talk' about our real experiences (Cope is saying he honestly had a genuine experience on the ridgeway) but we cover it up because of the fear we will not be taken seriously, or be able to publish a book. I can see it may be a case of 'needs must when the devil drives' in order for Cope to get his book out there, but to really change public perception about these matters we need 'brave' authors and publishers and people from the establishment (archaeologists, I suppose) to be 'bold' themselves and come onto places like this forum and engage in the discussion as it is in the real world, not avoid it because of their own fear of being 'labelled'. I'm certainly not slagging Cope, and I can see his book contributing perhaps to a change by increment rather than a big revolution, but sweeping genuine experience under the rug and presenting a more 'acceptable' face of the alternative is just a little disappointing to my mind. Having said that, elements of the essays in TMA are pretty out there and the comments above by people like Burl suggest exactly what I said earlier, that a lot of archaeologists became archaeologists because of their interest in the mysterious nature of the subject. "I'm certainly not slagging Cope, and I can see his book contributing perhaps to a change by increment rather than a big revolution, but sweeping genuine experience under the rug and presenting a more 'acceptable' face of the alternative is just a little disappointing to my mind" - well said Evergreen, i agree with all my heart, he should be one of the people telling the tales he keeps to himself, but doesn't just for the acknowledgement of so called experts that no doubt know less than he does, he should have more faith in himself and think about how he will look when he's gone, not now, he seems to have forgotten this a little bit [like nigel says it's probably a product of age].
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bladup 1986 posts |
Dec 03, 2012, 15:26
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nigelswift wrote: It comes back again to whether to compartmentalise or not to compartmentalise doesn't it? There are clear advantages to both strategies. Mr Cope kept the book compartmentalised and thereby earned respect in some quarters but disappointment from you! What's a poor bloke to do? The Portal has a compartment in which some of the inhabitants are as mad as a box of frogs. (Am I allowed to say that? Probably not. So I apologise to all frogs). So compartmentalising CAN be done. Does the rest of the Portal gain academic respect and attention as a result? I'd hazard a guess yes. It's all academic though as it just isn't going to happen here. Good.
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bladup 1986 posts |
Edited Dec 03, 2012, 15:39
Dec 03, 2012, 15:31
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thesweetcheat wrote: Craig Weatherhill has been on TMA a few times, I wish he'd come more often because he probably knows more about West Cornwall's sites than anyone else. I think people (including archaeos, who are just people too!) may be put off TMA by other things than any kind of "out there" discussions though. He's someone who doesn't even think saxon and vikings came to Cornwall in the past [he thinks it was just celtic???], i'd love to chat to him and put him straight on a few things, - eg there's loads of places down here with Saxon and Viking names, loads of Bury hills [Bury - the saxon name for hill for one].
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