Our Archaeology Service colleague, Roland Smith, retires at the end of March after a 45+ year career as a professional archaeologist. We asked Roland to write a blog reflecting on his time as an archaeologist, highlighting the best moments, and considering how the profession has changed over that time. This is what he had to say.

The ‘winter of discontent’ in 1978 was the prelude to the election of Britain’s first woman Prime Minster. My thoughts were less on the political maelstrom of the time, but what the future held for me now that I had achieved my A-Levels at school in Chippenham and my school days were over. From the outset, the world of archaeology appealed to me as an academic subject but one that involved fieldwork and the great outdoors. I therefore decided to test my resolve to become an archaeologist by delaying university for a year and going digging.

Little did I realise that I was about to enter the profession on the cusp of seismic change. In the 1960s and 1970s, archaeology was largely an amateur profession, carried out by a few paid and renowned professionals, supported by those on subsistence wages or working entirely voluntarily. Financial support was infrequently provided by developers, and then only voluntarily, and rescue or research excavations were largely funded by central or local government or through universities.

The first two excavations that I went on in autumn 1978 were on the Antonine Wall in Scotland run by the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, and in Northampton, where, with considerable foresight, the Northampton Development Corporation had created an archaeological unit to undertake archaeological investigations in advance of the significant growth of the town. However, for the former I was a volunteer, provided with free accommodation and food but otherwise unpaid, and for the latter I received free accommodation in a semi-derelict house with a subsistence wage. I was very grateful for the receipt of ‘Red Cross’ style parcels from my girlfriend, now my wife, to support my meagre income.

Figure 1: The team of archaeologists working for the Northampton Development Corporation in 1978. Roland is second from the right, standing. Note the complete absence of PPE!

There were already stirrings by the late 1970s that this model of funding could not continue as too many important archaeological sites, especially in historic towns and cities, were being lost without any record. In the 1980s the pressure for change increased with Government policy focussed on reducing public spending, and the not unreasonable view that developers should carry more responsibility and financial support for the harm they were causing to archaeological remains.

In 1985, having graduated with a degree in archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, now University College London, and by then working for the Trust for Wessex Archaeology (now Wessex Archaeology), I worked on one project that was funded by the developer, the ESSO Midline Pipeline, running from Fawley Oil Refinery in Hampshire to Staffordshire. There were several unexpected discoveries in that part of the pipeline that crossed Wiltshire, including the grave of a young Roman woman found in a valley below Barbury Castle hillfort and a section across the enigmatic post-Roman monument of the Wansdyke.

Figure 2: The skeleton of a young woman dating to the Late Roman period buried in a valley below Barbury Castle hillfort cut through by the ESSO Midline Pipeline in 1985. © Wessex Archaeology.

The discovery of the Rose Theatre on London’s South Bank in the late 1980s during the construction of a new office building and the ensuing storms of protest was to be a defining moment. This extremely difficult scenario ultimately resulted in a change to national planning policy in 1990 through PPG16 that saw archaeology become a ‘material consideration in the planning process’. Planners and developers now had to pay due regard to the identification and preservation, either in situ or by record, of buried archaeological remains.

This was the catalyst for a surge in the nature, size and structure of the archaeological profession. The number of professionals had begun to increase in the 1970s but from the 1990s onwards the trend has unrelentingly been upwards (bar hiccups along the way due to recession or other financial crises). Another significant change was the gradual demise of local or regional archaeological units that largely operated without competition within their geographical region. If developers were now expected to pay for archaeological services, they wanted to choose the organisation they wanted to use. This was a significant cultural change with archaeological units no longer having a regional monopoly but having to compete for work with other organisations, often from outside the region.

Figure 3: Graph showing the increase in the number of professional archaeologists over time, especially from the 1980s onwards. Information courtesy of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.

By the late 1990s, I had become a Project Manager for Wessex Archaeology. One challenging but rewarding project I managed was the archaeological excavations in advance of the construction of St Mary’s Stadium, Southampton. This was a high-profile project, undertaken to a tight deadline, but within the area of the nationally important Mid-Saxon town of Hamwic. Although the site of the new Stadium had previously been occupied by a gas works, archaeological remains survived remarkably well between the former gas works structures. These included an inhumation and cremation cemetery dating from the earliest years of the Saxon town and dating from the late 7th-century AD. The inhumation burials were richly furnished with weapons and jewellery, including a remarkable gold pendant with cloisonné and filigree decoration.

Figure 4: Mid-Saxon gold pendant with cloisonné and filigree decoration from an inhumation burial below St Mary’s Stadium, Southampton, excavated in 2000. The four outer panels, set in the form of a cross, contain three strands of twisted gold in the form of snakes providing Christian symbolism. Image courtesy of Wessex Archaeology.

By the 2010s, I had crossed the divide from working in an archaeological practice, providing services to developers to achieve their developments, to acting as an archaeological advisor to local government planning departments in Berkshire, Surrey and now Wiltshire. There is a pleasing symmetry that having left Chippenham to pursue a career in archaeology in 1978, my last employed role has seen me based in Chippenham in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre working for the Council’s Archaeology Service.

One of the highlights of my time with the Archaeology Service has been advising on a major residential development at Harnham, Salisbury. Geophysical survey and exploratory trial trenching prior to the determination of the planning application for residential development identified a large Bronze Age barrow cemetery just above the floodplain of the River Nadder.

Figure 5: The excavation of four Bronze Age round barrows in advance of residential development south of Netherhampton Road, Harnham, in 2022. The excavation followed exploratory investigations resulting in a condition attached to planning permission requiring the developer to fund in its entirety the excavation, and the analysis and publication of the results. Image courtesy of Cotswold Archaeology.

During my career and especially since 1990 and the introduction of PPG16 and its successors, the magnitude of archaeological investigation in the UK has been on a scale many, many times greater than that which went before. This has produced several significant benefits, the establishment and promotion of a Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, the rapid professionalisation of the sector, a better career structure, and a huge advance and more balanced understanding of our past now that resources are spent on investigating all types of sites, not just the most important and those at the most risk.

By the same token, it has resulted in many new challenges: how to manage the huge increase in archaeological data and archives; how to synthesise much of this data, especially that held in unpublished ‘grey literature’ reports; how to make the best use of digital technology, both in recording and in publication; how to maintain standards of archaeological work when anyone, regardless of credentials, can set themselves up as an archaeologist and start practising; how to encourage innovation and academic rigour in an increasingly process-driven profession; and most importantly how best to inform effectively the public about archaeological discoveries and new information.

These are all the growing pains of a young profession, and I am sure progress on all these challenges will continue to be made. In the meantime, it remains a remarkably enjoyable and rewarding profession and it has given me much pleasure and satisfaction over the last 45+ years.

Figure 6: Team photograph from an excavation in 2018 at Datchet, Berkshire, with Roland in the white hard hat. Compare with Figure 1, 40 years earlier. Image courtesy and copyright of CEMEX UK and Wessex Archaeology.

Roland Smith, Assistant County Archaeologist