 Good afternoon. Thank you for being here at the final hour almost. My job as a conservation technician is to make sure that archaeological data and artifacts of the city of Leiden are being deposited and I need to keep them safe and secure. Data and artifacts for instance can be requested for further research or to be put on display. My place within the archaeological process is at the very end and I do this with my partner in crime, Barbara Hummers, who is an archaeologist and organizer of this session. I'm going to sketch really fast. These are beautiful. Usually you don't see these pictures. Real fast Dutch practice. When it comes to archaeology and my place within this field, archaeological research in the Netherlands is developer funded, which means that finances play a role in the process of making choices in excavation and post excavation. The actual work is done by archaeological units who are hired by the developer. Experts have created a minimum set of requirements that archaeological research needs to meet. This results in a basic site report and there is also supervision and enforcement to make sure that the set of requirements are met before any excavation can start a programme of demands is drawn up. Permanent storage of our data and archaeological artifacts is safeguarded by our government through the heritage law and this law states that archaeological artifacts are owned by the government, the province or the municipality as soon as they are excavated. The place of depositories in Dutch archaeology is at the very end of the process, certainly because it has a place within this schematic. So costs for stabilizing artifacts lie with the developer and for certain categories that means artifacts need to be preserved before they can be stored. But there is no funding available for permanent storage and I represent the owner of the archaeological artifacts in the city of Leiden, but I'm not required to be an active participant at all. And I'm seeing a gap between the field work and the depositories. It is remarkable that the route from artifact analysis towards permanent storage is hardly ever a part of the discussion when we discuss selection strategies. And in the Netherlands all the attention and the funding go to the excavations and not the depositories, where the excavation is funded by the developer, the depositories aren't funded, but the actual safekeeping is done in the depositories and we're forgotten, feels like we're standing at the end of the line in the dark all alone. The specialist and basic site report is generally considered the end product of an archaeological project which is not correct. Permanent storage of our data and archaeological artifacts should be considered. The endpoint of an archaeological project, what we're basically dealing with is a conflict of interest. On the one hand we have the archaeological excavation units whose end product is the basic site reporting and on the other hand are the owners, the depositories whose job it is to make sure that archaeological data is secured for the future. These two goals are very different and they are different because the motivation is different. The archaeologist is looking for the minimally acceptable level of specialist analysis in order to answer the research questions of the projects. Unfortunately, I see a trend where these research questions seem to be the only criteria to select or deselect archaeological data and I find it a very dangerous part that is being taken. Because we don't know what sort of questions we want answered in the future and if we only keep the data that is being used to make the basic site report how can future research be done? When the remainder of the data hasn't been stored you can't examine it. And another issue I see happening is that the market seems to be collapsing under the weight of commercial pressure. The excavation companies are outbidding each other which can lead to cutting corners wherever possible and the minimal requirements are being undermined for low costs. The owner has a different goal. Depositories need to store the data and artifacts for future access be it research, publications, taking photographs or displaying artifacts and let's not forget that archaeological results should be open and accessible to the public. It does not belong to archaeologists, it belongs to all of us and therefore it is of vital importance to keep as much data as possible not what is deemed enough for answering research questions we had during excavation and I'm wondering if I'm getting enough information out of the basic site reports for future questions because right now the research questions are becoming the only criteria for selection and deslection and I fear that a lot is being left out. There is also another problem that is occurring and it concerns the vulnerable finds. The artifacts made out of wood and leather, textile and metal they are hardly found anymore according to the site reports and therefore are not being deposited. After all, what isn't found can't be stored and I find that a very concerning turn of events. I also find it hard to believe that for many years all sorts of vulnerable finds were being uncovered and now hardly any at all. They require additional treatment before they can be deposited and as I said earlier one of the demands is that the artifacts must be stable when deposited. So costs for preserving the finds lie with the developer costs that haven't been covered enough by the excavation units and when vulnerable finds are found I keep seeing in the site reports that these finds aren't of value to answer the research question and can therefore be deselected. Sometimes a lot of these artifacts are being uncovered at an excavation. In such a case we're contacted by an excavation unit during excavation and or examination and usually there is no money available for analysis let alone for preserving these artifacts and finally enough I never ever have this discussion about artifacts that don't cost extra money. I don't mind having a discussion about the necessity of keeping all artifacts physically in the depositories, I welcome it but I want to have it about all the artifacts and not the ones who happen to cost extra money and I think it's a very valid question can the examination of artifacts give enough information for the future without keeping the physical artifact itself and what does the examination look like? There is nothing wrong with agreeing on a minimum set of requirements there is nothing wrong with being sharp and asking questions which minimal level is acceptable to safeguard the research results. The whole point of all the agreements that were made was to ensure the research results that archaeology could be kept at situ and accessible for future research because keeping it in situ is not always an option but we are starting to the rail it's not about safeguarding archaeology for future any longer but about how excavations can be funded and there is a lack of funding and that actually shows in the results and somehow we've become stuck in the self-made world of rules that we've created ourselves. Now I do not believe that this situation has been created on purpose and I don't believe there is evil intent behind it my experience with people who work for and with incultural heritage is that they do it with passion and heart uncovering, keeping and passing of knowledge about our history is seen as important but I do believe we've created the situation ourselves and that it is hard to get out of and I've been thinking a lot about the question what can I do to make it better? The most important one for the depositories is to become visible in the process of archaeological research not only is it important for excavation units and specialists to know my depository and know what it is that I keep there and why I'm keeping it it's also important for my employer to see all the data I'm keeping safe all the artefacts tell a story of a city of Leiden and how wonderful is it that we can tell these stories and share them with the rest of the world give yourself a valid reason why you exist it is good for funding as well we just started to work together with the depositories of different municipalities standing strong together and it's such a shame and a missed opportunity that the depositories don't really know each other we just started with the initiative to begin a platform and the time seems to be right permanent storage is finally becoming big news at the moment at least we are hoping to do with the other depositories what we are hoping to do with the other depositories is to start a discussion within our community about the earlier involvement of depositories and that's the first collaboration with direct colleagues is another thing I did to make things better by building a better and clearer working relationship with them they supervise and enforce the set of requirements that have been determined in the programme of demands we use this document to make the requirements for permanent storage clear this is useful because this is the starting document of any project my requirements are made known in an early stage and we agree on the document before it is sent out into the world unfortunately a lot of the time the units don't seem to read the requirements beforehand and that leads to questions and irritations when depositing becomes an issue my colleagues also send us the evaluation basic cycle reports so we can see what decisions were made and if we agree and this is the point where we can formally intervene but there isn't a lot of room for big changes and this usually is the moment where trouble starts so I thought what else can I do it seems to me that it is very important to have a good working relationship with the excavation units but how do I accomplish that? by getting involved earlier like I said the depositories are at the end of the line and no active part is required for me that doesn't mean I can't step into the process earlier so I decided to start visiting excavations in effect introducing myself to the archaeological units offering my help at a much earlier stage I do this with the hope that problems later on can be avoided talking to people and getting to know them is a much better basis for a working relationship than only communicating through email for instance not only do I get to see the human behind the work but they get to see the human behind the depository and in this case that's me I recently visited an excavation where several reused wooden wine barrels with markings were found a beautiful find but also a difficult one it is a fragile find and it will cost money to preserve because we're talking about a lot of wooden stakes the markings are important because we don't really know what they mean we haven't found a lot of them in Leider so for me it is important that these barrels are documented well drawings, photographs and measurements need to be taken I want some of the markings to be preserved and kept for future research and exhibition purposes but keeping all of them in permanent storage isn't necessary nor desirable and all of a sudden right there at the excavation where in agreement we decided to preserve only the stakes of markings and not the entire barrels so now we are on the same side how to best preserve the knowledge these barrels can give not only for now but also for the future full documentation is most important some markings in the flesh so to speak is a viable option it is a step one over two step approach step two is to visit the archaeological units after the excavation see how they're getting on other problems that we can help with to solve I understand that you can't keep everything but at the very least there needs to be full documentation so that the information is available for future questions and when questions do come in our way regarding insufficient funding make an appointment and go there it is completely unexpected but it works putting effort into taking questions that the other has seriously creates good solid partnerships don't be the nagging afterthought at the end of the line where nothing can be done and all the decisions are made and can't be unmade be a positive force, a force to be reckoned with make no mistake but a willing participant working together to create an end result that everybody is happy with I sound like a marriage counselor I know but communication is really very important my personal experience by visiting these units and finding solutions for questions brings relief I saw setting shoulders when it became clear I wasn't to criticize or being difficult I was there to work together to move forward but this is still a work in progress and we only started it this year and most importantly let's discuss not just selection for analysis but take it a step further what is needed for preservation exit right now it's about getting archaeology out of the ground as fast as possible with minimal costs if we want to keep archaeology safe for the future we need to have this discussion all the solutions so far are about pretty simple things that I do to help improve the situation but is there more that can be done? of course legislation can be altered but not always but sometimes it can this is a long and tedious process and the question is, is this worth it? what we're looking at right now is to see if some of the funding that is available for field work and the analysis can be bent in our direction is it possible that some funding goes directly to the depositories? this is a more complex discussion that I can't solve and this needs to take place at a much higher level of command so I want to finish by imploring you to go home and bring your passion and enthusiasm to the outside world my advice to you is to put yourself out there be proud of what you do and show it at the end of the day we all want to make sure that the stories that are being kept in the ground are being kept safe for the future so let's discuss how we can achieve that together we can tell better and more complete stories thank you