A Life in Norfolk's Archaeology: 1950-2016: Archaeology in an arable landscape (Archaeological Lives)

This is a much more valuable book than its title implies. It is indeed the story of one person’s involvement in one county, from being an amateur volunteer in the 1950s, through 26 years as County Field Archaeologist, to lasting impact as Director of the county Archaeological Trust. However, it is an illustration of sixty years of British archaeology, and how changes in legislation interacted with the enthusiasm, insight, hard work, neglect, greed, and incompetence of individuals and organisations, to save and record much, and to let much be irretrievably lost. If someone in the 22nd century wants to write a history of British archaeology in this period, and how it contributed to what is known about the past, this book will be a valuable resource on how things worked in practice.Peter Wade-Martins first became involved when, in the country, diesel tractors with deep ploughs were beginning to increase national food production, and destroy many remains of the past. In old town centres, postwar development was under way. In neither case was there any requirement nor right of access to record what was destroyed. But by the time Wade-Martins retired from county employment, Planning Policy Guidance No 16 “integrated archaeology into the planning process” and led to archaeological assessments of proposed development, and developer-funded excavations.This great progress has not prevented much loss through agricultural and other activity. Wade-Martins’ language is gentle, but the criticism of English Heritage (succeeded by Historic England) is severe, for its culpable failure to exercise its powers to schedule important sites, to the national loss. In contrast to this failure, as Director of Norfolk Archaeological Trust, Wade-Martins has been able to lead a remarkable programme of raising funds to buy and maintain a wide range of important sites, which can now be conserved and investigated in a way which public authorities failed to ensure.There is criticism too of excavators whose work has inevitably severely damaged sites, but who have then never reported their findings. This is an old problem in archaeology, but it is a shock to read how much worse it has become under developer-funded excavation, where the pressure is on teams to move to the next job without properly recording the first, even when the reporting time has been paid for. In March 2016 the threat of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made Norfolk’s Historic Environment Service reveal that there were 369 reports which had not been submitted by 30 different archaeological contractors since 1994, with one contractor having 184 reports overdue, and another 68. In March 2017, another similar FOI request was refused, because the information was “too sensitive”.But there is much more to this book than that story, because like jewels strung on a necklace, the tale is interspersed with many interesting accounts of the investigations that the author has been involved with, and many will find the book worth reading just from that point of view. These include the great 5th-6th century cemetery at Spong Hill, with its 2400 graves; the Middle Anglo-Saxon village near the cathedral site at North Elmham; his PhD work on landscape and human settlement in West Norfolk through the Middle Ages; the highly productive alliance formed with hobby metal detectorists; and many, many others.A very valuable book.