Another Country: A Season in Archaeology.

Another Country: A Season in Archaeology. David Gerard was a mature student who read archaeology at Durhamduring 1982-1985, and in this remarkable book he presents astudent's-eye view that ought to be read by anyone in the businessof teaching archaeology. I admit I was initially a little uncertain howmuch archaeology Gerard had actually learnt, because he misspells'millennia' on page 2; but on reflection it struck me that theDurham department has always been more at ease with centuries thanmillennia so he probably never had cause to learn the word.Gerard catapults us into an antique world where a department consistsof just seven lecturers and one minibus min��i��bus?n. pl. min��i��bus��es or min��i��bus��sesA small bus typically used for short trips.minibusNouna small busNoun 1. , and the year's singlehonours intake is a mere sixteen! Two lecturers are available to conducteach UCCA UCCA(formerly, in Britain) Universities Central Council on AdmissionsUCCA(Brit) n abbr (= Universities Central Council on Admissions) → akademische Zulassungsstelle, ZVS finterview. The admissions glory makes interesting reading,including descriptions of interviews with luminaries such as RichardBradley and Colin Renfrew. The process was more leisurely than it istoday, but apparently no less haphazard. Offered interviews at fouruniversities, Gerard spurned spurn?v. spurned, spurn��ing, spurnsv.tr.1. To reject disdainfully or contemptuously; scorn. See Synonyms at refuse1.2. To kick at or tread on disdainfully.v. Reading -- 'featureless, like anotherLeicester' -- and ignored Southampton -- 'another Reading,with ships'. Cambridge waited several months before offering him aplace on a post-graduate course, so it was Durham by default; twocheers, as he says, for Durham.Gerard's perspective is that of a mature student whose earliercareer was in libraries. He admits to approaching Durham with somereverence -- something the normal post-A level cannon fodder assuredlydoes not -- and to some extent it seems he found what he expected:lecturers whom he could caricature into rather predictable categories.Mind you, the caricatures are penetrating and entertaining; thus we have'the acerbic genius with a heart of gold', who in the personof John Casey appears to have been the lecturer Gerard most enjoyed, andwho responded to the latter's blackboard scrawl of:Julius Caesar Was no sort of appeaser; He was prone to ask 'Whydo we Keep sending gifts to the Aedui?'with the offer of a bottle of claret for the best historical doggerel dog��ger��el? also dog��greln.Crudely or irregularly fashioned verse, often of a humorous or burlesque nature.[From Middle English, poor, worthless, from dogge, dog; see produced by the class (worth winning; he keeps good claret).Casey's reported comment after silence followed a simple questionto the group -- 'I tell you, the angel of death will pass over thisclass' -- spurred Gerard on to gain a 2(i), although one getslittle real impression of the amount of hard work that (I suppose) itcost. Among the other lecturers we meet the obligatory statisticalgenius, the keen scout who likes Vikings, the zany bone man, the gentlelady conservator conservatorn. a guardian and protector appointed by a judge to protect and manage the financial affairs and/or the person's daily life due to physical or mental limitations or old age. , even the Greek hero; and, best of all, the austereRoman militarist: 'straightbacked and of great height he marched asif at the head of a legionary detachment, his steel-shod shoes hittingthe ground hard. He was the disciplined centurion, always keyed up foraction, the landscape of Roman Britain was in his every glance...'.What did Gerard gain from his three years? He admits to a feeling ofliberation walking across Elvet Bridge after a couple of post-finalspints in the Half Moon, but also confides that the degree had nowherenear the impact of his first one in English Literature -- but then hewas a couple of decades older when he came to Durham. He met anddisliked the New Archaeology in the writings of David Clarke and LewisBinford, and he also encountered the opening salvoes of thepost-processualist counter-revolution and liked that even less, ending aparticularly claptrappish quote from a trendy of that ilk denoting that a person's surname and the title of his estate are the same; as, Grant of that ilk, i.e., Grant of Grant.Of the same kind.- Jamieson.See also: Ilk Ilk with the words'God help his students'. The only theoretical stance he quoteswith approval is that of the dominating Professor Rosemary Cramp, whoreferred to archaeological scientists as 'statniks' and whotold everyone to read Jacquetta Hawkes' The proper study ofmankind; odd when one considers that Cramp subsequently made Durham intoone of the leading centres of archaeological science in the country.But do students really see us as Gerard does? I suppose I shall neverknow. But one thing is certain: I shall never see my senior colleaguesin quite the same light again.PETER ROWLEY-CONWY Department of Archaeology, University of Durham (body, education) University of Durham - A busy research and teaching community in the historic cathedral city of Durham, UK (population 61000). Its work covers key branches of science and technology and traditional areas of scholarship.