Promoting the Profession

This collection honours Pete Hinton’s contributions to the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and the professionalisation of archaeology. Through essays and reflections, it examines the field’s rapid development, ethical standards, emerging social roles, and future challenges in research, conservation and community engagement.

Promoting the Profession is a collection of papers honouring the work of Pete Hinton, CEO of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists until his retirement in 2024. Members of CIfA, office holders, friends and colleagues have come together with personal narratives, reviews and critical appraisals to provide an insight into the rapid development of modern day archaeology. Today a technologically advanced profession, its members have turned to setting standards, establishing ethical codes, creating guidance and providing an influential platform through the creation of an increasingly professional institute, CIfA. It has been change at breakneck speed and far from a linear pathway. The contributors to this volume illustrate the nature of contemporary practice and reflect on the challenges as the profession embarks on an amenity turn exploring the benefits of archaeology in areas of well-being, traumatic stress, community cohesion and place making.

While the book is intended to highlight the growth and progress of the Institute during Pete’s tenure, several authors have taken the opportunity to consider the future. This is a book for all, for those in commercial and conservation practice, for those who teach, for those in the field, at the microscope and the keyboard. This is part of the CIfA narrative, a contribution to the literature of professionalisation and to the cultural history of a key discipline in contemporary Europe.

Acknowledgements

List of Contributors

Chapter 1: Introduction – Michael Dawson, Gerry Wait

Chapter 2: Archaeology, Heritage, and Sustainability: From Strategic Imperative to Operational Challenge – Hana Morel

Chapter 3: The Importance of Professional Ethics and Professional Standards – Gerry Wait

Chapter 4: Professional Ethics in Defence of Democratic Society – Kenneth Aitchison

Chapter 5: Heritage Innovation: Professionalism, Ethics, and Automation – Paul Belford

Chapter 6: Public Benefit in Archaeology: Considering Archaeology for Health and Wellbeing – Linda Monckton

Chapter 7: The Politics of Heritage – Adrian Olivier

Chapter 8: Looking to the Future – Roger Thomas

Chapter 9: The Origins, Development, and Future of CIfA’s Code of Conduct – Joe Abrams

Chapter 10: The Quiet Revolution: PPS5 Transitions and Archaeological Practice – Jan Wills, Stewart Bryant, Rob Lennox, Alex Llewellyn, Tim Howard

Chapter 11: London, PARIS, Southport, and CIRIA – A Grand Tour – Taryn Nixon

Chapter 12: Big Issues Small Profession: ‘Social Value’ and CIfA – Andrea Bradley

Chapter 13: Striving for Professionalism in the United States – Christopher D. Dore, Terry H. Klein

Chapter 14: Quality Assurance in Dutch Archaeology: 25 Years of Challenge – Wilfried A.M. Hessing

Chapter 15: Going International: CIfA Deutschland, a Reflective Review – Michaela Schauer, Diane Scherzler, Frank Siegmund, Gerry Wait

Chapter 16: From the Editor’s Desk: 15 Years of The Historic Environment Policy and Practice – Michael Dawson

Chapter 17: A Decade of Evolution: Commercial Archaeology and the Demands of Major Infrastructure – Stuart Joyce

Chapter 18: Enhancing Community Wellbeing: Exploring Military Veterans’ Engagement with Heritage – Dickie Bennett, Richard Osgood, Phil Abramson, Alex Sotheran

Chapter 19: APPAG, Advocacy and Archaeology – Mike Heyworth

Chapter 20: The Rewley Road Railway Swing Bridge, Oxford: Stewardship of an Historic Asset – Tom Hassall

Index

Michael Dawson PhD, FSA, MCIfA is editor of the journal The Historic Environment Policy and Practice, former Director of Heritage at CgMs, at RPS, and latterly TetraTech. He was Chair of the IFA between 2004 and 2008. During the late 1980s and 1990s he was a senior Project Manager with Bedfordshire County Archaeology. His research interests include the relationship between policy and practice in the historic environment, institutional agency, the Romans in Britain and Romania (Dacia) and Roman urbanism. At Oxford University he wrote his DPhil on the spectacle and display of Britain’s mosaic pavements in contemporary exhibition.

Gerry Wait PhD, FSA, MCIfA is an archaeologist, anthropologist and heritage consultant. His work has focussed on finding ways to make the past relevant to people and communities in building their future. He has undertaken heritage assessments for Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) in many countries and developed considerable experience in conservation management planning. Gerry has engaged extensively with professional practice and ethics, serving CIfA as Treasurer and then as Honorary Chair for two terms.

• Edited by Michael Dawson
• Edited by Gerry Wait