The necessary change of model in the Spanish professional archaeology

Abstract

Professional archaeologists to be people who make their living through the practice of archaeology. In this regard, it has become disturbingly commonplace to note that professional archaeology is in crisis. The reasons are threefold. First, its practitioners play a difficult intermediate role between cultural authorities, on the one hand, and developers, on the other. They depend on the former to carry out the activities commissioned from them by the latter, who, in turn, commission those activities not out of conviction, but to meet their legal obligations. The second cause of dissatisfaction stems from the fact that cultural authorities have handed over some of their responsibilities for preventive archaeology to developers and landowners, in an example of stark neoliberalism. Finally, although the relationship with cultural authorities is usually fluid, that does not prevent bureaucratization from imposing often inexplicable deadlines for processing formalities such as permits for archaeological activities. In this paper, we identify these three circumstances as the problem facing professional archaeology and the cause of the malaise affecting its practitioners. However, we also propose a solution to address these challenges, which, far from temporary, have become systematic in the management of preventive archaeology and, therefore, impossible to check without a change of model.