Quote of the week: Mike Pitts on the impact of reduced funding for archaeology

Across the UK and Ireland, excavation funding is falling; archaeologists are losing their jobs. But the unrecorded past is still there, and building, farming, roadworks and many other forces relentlessly wipe the record.  Only now, after decades of astonishingly productive work, do we realise how much must have been lost before, We are losing things now. And in the present state of the economy it is no surprise to hear calls to relax protection legislation… [British Archaeology http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ ]

Powerful words. And there is great significance in what he adds:

We feature six typical sites that are being or may soon be destroyed. They range from traces of 8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers to a world war two bomb shelter, and none can be saved by professional archaeologists on their own.