Communicating Archaeology

By Alan Hunt

A volume of essays on communicating archaeology by every imaginable means provides an excellent tribute to the work of Bill Putnam - always a communicator. Learning by doing (Philip Rahtz) , field archaeology in the 70s and 80s (John Hinchliffe) , ignore good communication at your peril (Andrew Lawson) , the IFA: what it means to be a member of a professional body (Timothy Darvill) , talking to ourselves (Ellen McAdam) , commissioning knowledge or making archaeology for books (Peter Kemmis Betty) , arcane to ARC: the York experience (Andrew Jones) , the National Curriculum (Mike Corbishley) , past experience: the view from teacher education (Tim Copeland) , child's play: archaeology out of school (Kate Pretty) , university archaeology: ivory tower or white elephant? (Kevin Andrews) , liberal adult education in the second half of the twentieth centruy (Trevor Rowley) , the local societies (John Manley) , archaeology in museums

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Jul 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781785708091

Book preview

Figure 1.1. Bill Putnam

1 Bill Putnam: an appreciation

John Beavis and Alan Hunt

Introduction

Bill Putnam founded an enclave for archaeology in a distant predecessor of Bournemouth University, Weymouth College, in 1967. The present writers joined him soon after, and worked with Bill for over 20 years. This has robbed us of the ability to imagine Bill in a state of retirement. However, we have to admit that Bill has come of age. At the end of the academic year 1994/5 he retired from the demands of full-time employment, thus creating the opportunity to enter a new phase of his archaeological career. This seemed a good time to celebrate the past phases, and to launch Bill on the next with a conference that reflected the significant contribution he has already made, and no doubt will continue to make, to archaeology.

This presented a problem: of Bill’s many contributions to archaeology in the fields of Roman studies, archaeological politics and administration and archaeological education, was there a common feature which characterized Bill, and which most who have known him in these different fields would recognize? We agreed it was probably Bill as archaeological communicator that most would find striking. But there is an interesting paradox in this. On first acquaintance Bill may seem to be a man of few words. But a listener will soon notice a rare quality. Here is a speaker who commands attention, and one superbly skilled in combining erudition, rationality, enthusiasm and simplicity of style and language; but he is also someone who knows when he has something worth saying but otherwise stays silent. His powers of communication are most apparent when he lectures: his performances are invariably memorable for their visual imagery, narrative skill, deceptively understated display of learning and a love of subject still fresh after years of familiarity. And his audiences are always attentive, always moved, always enthusiastically appreciative.

So, now we celebrate Bill the communicator by dedicating to him this volume of conference papers on communicating archaeology (Figure 1.1). By way of an introduction, and as an appreciation of Bill’s contribution to archaeology, this chapter briefly reviews Bill’s archaeological career. In doing so we seek to identify some key influences on his development, and sketch the changing archaeological environment in which he has worked. John Beavis has known Bill rather longer, and consequently surveys the period to 1975; thereafter the torch passes to Alan Hunt. Our account is semi-autobiographical in two senses. We draw on our personal knowledge of Bill and the archaeological world of the last 30 years, but also on what Bill has told us about the first 30. And we offer this contribution to Bill as the reflections of two friends who have enjoyed and valued the privilege of working with him.

To 1975

The origins of Bill’s interest in the ancient world can be traced to his early education at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe. Here he found himself studying classics, but rather because he was bright, than because he wanted to. With hindsight he might have chosen to study science, to which he was probably more inclined, but at the Royal Grammar School the best pupils did classics, and only dull boys did science.

School success in classics led him quite naturally to read classics at university. But at this point he broke with school tradition, and instead of going to Oxbridge he won a state scholarship and became an undergraduate at University College London in 1948. This was a critical year in Bill’s archaeological development. He chose to read the Archaeology of Roman Britain as his special subject, and stepped aside from pure classics.

Bill does not recall any strong motivation in his trajectory at this time. Rather, he sees it as the experience of one flowing with a stream of circumstance. Perhaps, however, his choice of special subject is an indication that he was already becoming aware that archaeology might offer him more satisfaction than a cerebral, bookish pursuit of the classics.

But it was his encounter with Wheeler that we should recognize as the truly significant event of that year. He seems to have found this memorable. He says that after one lecture he was absolutely captivated. Professor Wheeler represented the passing heroic age of archaeology, and here are the ingredients of hero worship. But this is far too simplistic and romantic an account of Bill’s archaeological conversion. There was a lot more to it than Wheeler’s inspiration. Rescue archaeology had gained momentum in post-war London, and Bill could be found excavating at sites such as the Cripplegate Roman Fort (which particularly interested him) not only at the weekends, but during the week as well. Wheeler was in charge of the work, but he saw more of Grimes. He also saw a lot of Richmond and was getting to know him well, just before his untimely death. The practical involvement and intellectual challenge absorbed him and he spent far more time on archaeology than the one day a week that was allotted on the timetable. But it was during this time that the roots of Bill’s excavation style were established, and the influence of these early mentors can probably been seen in Bill’s approach to excavation to this day.

The inevitable outcome of too much archaeology was a poorer degree in Classics than he should have achieved. But he had also made a serious commitment to the subject. The future would show that it was the kind of commitment which follows when the pursuit of a subject provides multidimensional rewards for its pursuer. In archaeology this student of the ancient world found that he could exercise his leanings toward the practical and the empirical in a sense that he could adopt the quasi-scientific approach to the past that suited his personality so well.

But what would he do at the end of his course? There were no jobs in archaeology, though there is little doubt that Bill would have sought to work in the field if this had been a remote possibility. He decided to try teaching and enrolled for a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. He admits that it would be tempting to claim that he was motivated in this by his enthusiasm to communicate archaeology to young people; but more realistically, it was probably because he attended a talk by someone from the Institute of Education attempting to recruit uncommitted graduates into teaching.

Bill enjoyed the course enormously, and through his experience in the classroom began to discover to his satisfaction considerable abilities as a teacher. But then National Service in the RAF intervened. This suspended his archaeological activities completely, but among other things provided him with training as an administrator, and experience of accounts, law, secretarial and related activities which he would put to most effective use much later through his involvement with professional archaeological training and administration. He achieved the rank of Flying Officer, and became a Flight Commander at the RAF Apprentice Training School at Halton, an experience which would not be without relevance to leadership roles he would adopt in archaeology in later years.

At the end of the two years he applied for a post at the Boys’ Grammar School, Newtown, at that time in Montgomeryshire. He was successful at interview, and was appointed in 1954 to teach Latin and Greek. When he arrived he discovered that he was also expected to teach Higher School Certificate English, which he found a somewhat disconcerting prospect, as his only resource for doing so was a Certificate in English Language. The way he responded to this challenge illuminates in a small way Bill’s characteristic pragmatism. In effect he developed an algorithmic approach to the examination, which owed far more to analysis of past exam papers than to sympathy for English literature. His pupils began to pass English literature in respectable numbers for the first time. Possibly this mechanical approach, which did not have much to do with English, suited their Welsh upbringing particularly well. But we might reflect with Bill on the incongruity of a small group of Welsh farmers, now in their fifties, who share the unique feature of possessing a qualification in English Literature.

Teaching gave him time to turn his attention seriously to archaeology once more, and during the fifties he gained experience of excavation and fieldwork which culminated in his first independent excavation in 1960. During this time he formed archaeological friendships which would be significant in his later work. These included Leslie Alcock, at that time Lecturer in Archaeology at Cardiff, with whom he excavated as a volunteer; and Barri Jones with whom he carried out fieldwork, and who, incidentally, had been a year behind him at High Wycombe and was still at that time an amateur. He involved his pupils in archaeology at every opportunity, which, given the constraints of syllabuses, meant that he ran an extra-curricular archaeology club.

This pattern continues during the 1960s but the emphasis shifts from Bill the participant to Bill the director of excavations. The intensity of this involvement can be judged from his excavation programme: on the Roman fortlet at Pen y Crocbren in 1960; on fortlets at Llanfair Caereinion in 1961, and Carno in 1962; at the medieval castle of Castell Bryn Amlwg with Leslie Alcock in 1963; on the Wroxeter to Penal Roman road in 1964; on the road to the north of Caersws in 1965; and on Caersws fort itself with Barri Jones in 1966-7. By now he had a highly enthusiastic group of senior pupils who took part in these excavations, and in the extensive programme of fieldwork with which Bill supported them.

During his Welsh phase, Bill’s research was undoubtedly driven by a desire to understand Roman archaeology, but it would be misleading to confine him to this period. Bill was, and still is, challenged by making sense of landscape as a whole, regardless of period, and his abilities as a landscape historian were undoubtedly sharpened at this time. Another of his enthusiasms, industrial archaeology, also appears to have its origins here, and perhaps can be specifically linked to the need to understand the industrial landscape of Pen y Crocbren as an integral part of the problem posed by the fortlet. His reputation as a lecturer becomes firmly established, and he develops a programme of part-time courses in archaeology for University College of Wales Cardiff which were to continue for some time after he left Wales. Skills associated with archaeology, such as surveying and photography, are developed to professional standards and find application elsewhere: for example in a photography and film club that brings success to the school in national competition. Photography also appeared on the evening class programme of University College Aberystwyth; he offered this along with lectures in archaeology.

He was also becoming influential in the politics of archaeology locally and nationally, becoming editor of the Montgomeryshire Collections, playing a part locally in the development of the Council for British Archaeology, and becoming Secretary of the Cambrian Archaeological Association.

Having this enthusiast on the staff of the school must have been a wonderful experience for the pupils, but somewhat disconcerting for some of the members of staff whose perspectives tended to be limited by the school boundary, and even in one case by the covers of a textbook. It is not hard to recognize in his accounts of this time Bill’s concern for children who were not getting the richest experience, a completely natural feature of his character, and one from which so many of his students have benefited over the years.

The year 1967 was pivotal in Bill’s career. In that year he read an advertisement seeking an archaeologist to join the staff of Weymouth College of Education. Seeing the opportunity this presented for developing his archaeology further he applied, and on the basis of his archaeological reputation, and his headmaster’s outstanding reference, he was appointed. The circumstances leading to the original advertisement are not entirely clear. Increase in the demand for teacher training places was the factor which led the College to increase the strength of its History Department, but why they sought an archaeologist is more puzzling. Only two historians were involved, both early modernists and neither noted for a particular interest in archaeology. One was Terry Hearing who cannot recall being involved in the matter. So credit is presumably due to the late George Body, Head of History, for his ability to foresee the enrichment that archaeology could bring to a study of the past in his Department, and ultimately in schools.

This year was important for me too, because it was the year I left the electronics industry and became a student at Weymouth College, for the not-too-idealistic reason that teaching would give me time for a lot of other interesting things besides electronics. I had already decided to study history, and a brief encounter with Bill left me in no doubt that I should work with him. Yes, he was a brilliant lecturer – I was captivated by the subject – and I did spend more time on archaeology than I should have done. Should I hold Putnam or Wheeler responsible?

Fieldwork with Bill was often memorable, and one always learnt a lot, though this was not always entirely archaeological. At that time Bill did not have access to much technology to assist with fieldwork, but he had a clear concept of the remote sensing probe – in human form. And he also had a tendency to carry out fieldwork under all conditions. Often one seemed to find oneself in situations of this kind trying to follow an earthwork which Bill thought would be absolutely obvious when one emerged on the other side of some obstacle, which he would usually circumvent by an easier route. On one occasion, when we were attempting to trace missing bits of Ackling Dyke in Puddletown Forest, I remember Bill saying something like: ‘OK, it’s going through there. You follow it. I’ll get the Land Rover and meet you at the road’, pointing into rhododendrons of rainforest density. I crawled off with the enthusiasm of ferret into rabbit warren, and wriggled out – after quite a long time – to find, some way off, a slightly impatient Bill indicating that he had already obtained the result I was supposed to achieve by my emergence from the thicket. I learnt from this about problems in transrhododendronal navigation.

Of course, this experience is not representative: Bill taught me an enormous amount, and at the end of my course he inspired me to set about