Archaeologists, Curators and Brexit

An interesting piece in the Guardian Newspaper today. I may not agree with everything that’s written but I think it’s important that the media is looking beyond accusations on scaremongering and attempting to cover some of the issues that a departure from the EU may bring. One aspect beyond funding, that is often not approached, are the conservation laws. Some key laws that protect buildings, fish, mammals, animal transportation, ecological areas and protected species are also currently set at EU standards. The Neighbouring Bill which has been suggested for implementation following Brexit would prevent any construction project from having to legally perform an archaeological survey. The success of Commercial Archaeology is directly affected by the construction industry and could in future, be reliant on clients wanting to pay for a survey (and the potential outcome projects) during their construction periods. Needless to say, this would reduce the amount of work available and in turn leave countless sites, artefacts, stratigraphic sequences and more at risk. This is just one example of how all factors of Archaeology and Ecology could be affected. Everything is essentially up for reassessment once the country leaves the union.