6/26/2016 Being a council archaeologist is 'like being a detective' | Guardian Professional | The Guardian

Being a council archaeologist is 'like being a

detective'
Staffordshire county council's principal archaeologist talks about his job, from analysing human remains to
excavating war sites
Sarah Marsh
Friday 6 September 2013 12.00 BST

Name: Stephen Dean

Age: 42

Job: principal archaeologist

Council: Staffordshire county council

Describe a typical day in your job: What I do is really varied. I provide advice on planning
applications for the county council but also for district councils and I make sure the historic
environment is taken into account in plans. I also respond to what is happening locally – last week
I was called out because human remains were found and I was asked to get them assessed.

What's the most interesting archaeological find you have worked on? That would be the
Staffordshire hoard. Hoards are different; they are not sites, they're essentially holes in the ground
where stuff has been dumped. That forced me to step back and look at the broader landscape and
figure out what was going on, so one of the most interesting parts is the detective element.
Archaeology is like a jigsaw puzzle, except that you can't cheat and look at the box, and not all the
pieces are there.

Do you work a lot with local volunteers? I am about to start excavation on a great war terrain
model on Cannock Chase. We think two or three of these sites survived from the western front,
but this is a unique model of the battle of Messines in 1917. It was built by a New Zealand rifle
brigade after the battle had been won and it still survives. We are working with a group called No
Man's Land who do a lot of work on the western front, and volunteers such as the Young
Archeologist Club. We try to cast our net quite broadly.

What's the value of archaeology to communities? Archaeology gives a sense of place. It grounds us
within the landscape and every place is unique. The problem is when you strip that historic
character out people just do not know how to act. Heritage grounds people and gives rules to work
by, and archaeology is part of that. Archaeology can also give an understanding of where we come
from.

Who is in your team? I work with a conservation officer dealing with the built environment, a
landscape officer looking at broad landscape and a historic environment officer who records and
maintains everything we know about the county. You should never take the historic environment
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6/26/2016 Being a council archaeologist is 'like being a detective' | Guardian Professional | The Guardian

separately. There is a lot of crossover so we can cover each other's approach as and when
necessary.

How have cuts affected your job? We haven't seen any cuts at the moment but I think we need to
be smarter and find different ways of doing things, working with volunteers and getting them
more energised. We are in a state of flux at the moment and we are not entirely sure which way it
is going to go, but we are trying to steer the ship in the right direction. I think with the county
council support we will get there.

What's the best part of your job? I like getting out. Working for a county council means I work in a
rich environment; one day I could be at Kinver Edge Hillfort or over at Trent Washlands looking at
prehistoric sites. You also get surprises like the Staffordshire hoard – there was no indication it
was there.

How do you use technology? I am a luddite when it comes to technology, but I can really see the
value of it. One thing we are doing with the terrain model excavation is using laser scanning to
prepare a detailed three-dimensional model. We can overlay areas of fighting, which reveals a
whole story that cannot be told as well in other mediums. We could do more with virtual reality in
the future, that would be incredible.

What skills do you need to get ahead as a council archaeologist? You need to be able to listen and
have a degree of flexibility. You need to take the views of others into account. Increasingly, you
also need to be savvy in the digital world.

What advice would you give an aspiring archaeologist? Go out and do it. The first thing I did was a
university dig, so talk to universities and see if they are doing anything. Also talk to local societies.
The Stoke-on-Trent Archaeology Museum Society do some really great work. It is hands-on and
anyone is welcome.

• What do you think? Email sarah.marsh@theguardian.com if you want to contribute an article to

this debate.

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Topics
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