On Saturday May 18th the Lanark and District Archaeological Society and the Council for Independent Archaeologists held a joint conference in New Lanark that was attended by thirty delegates from all over Britain from the Dornoch Firth in the North to Maidstone in Kent in the South. Jim Arnold Manager of the New Lanark World Heritage Centre and Andrew Selkirk, the Chairman of the Council of Independent Archaeologists officially welcomed delegates.
After the welcome Ian Borthwick, Chairman of LADAS started the first section of the Conference called 'Cracking the Egg - Getting Funding.' The first speaker was Elizabeth Henderson from ALVO, she did an excellent computer generated presentation on the main types of Funding that were available. Roy Friendship Taylor was the next speaker and he described in detail the funding of the Piddington Roman Villa Project in Northamptonshire and how over £300,000 had been raised for it. He was followed by Macolm Alyett - reporting on a successful application for lottery funding for the Border Archaeological Society for its work in Berwick on Tweed. The last speaker in this section was Pam Hudson from the Council for Scottish Archaeology and the different avenues that could be pursued to get funding.
The next part of the Conference was devoted to 'Report Writing'. Robin Murdoch of the Edinburgh Archaeological Society described the story of the publication of Fast Castle and the work involved. Several members brought the publication that he had brought along with him. After his talk Edwina Proudfoot described the progress being made with the Scottish Churches Project and how it was being computerized. Delegates were able to examine the progress for themselves on a portable computer. Ron Page followed with a description of the publication of the excavation report of the Blackfriars site in Stirling. Finally Emma Carver of the Scottish Archaeological Forum pointed out the ways in which amateur archaeologists could get their work published.
At this point delegates broke for lunch and resumed at 2p.m with Ed Archer in the chair. The first afternoon session was a brief one on 'Law and Ethics' and the speaker was C.I.A Chairman, Andrew Selkirk. He spoke on the problems of the current antiquities legislation and he expressed the opinion that the national museums were guilty of stamp collecting and not letting local museums keep items that were of local importance. He also pointed out that many items that local museums would like were kept in store and in some cases lost. He said that this situation must change.
The next section was on 'New Technology'. The first speaker was Eric Houlder of the Pontefract and District Archaeological Society and one of the foremost archaeological photographers in Britain, he spoke on the Pros and cons of Digital Photography and advised delegates that conventional photography was much better in the long term but that the Digital camera was useful as a cheap way of recording sites although he emphasized that it should be used in tandem with conventional photography. Next Kevan Fadden of the C.I.A spoke about the Resistivity Meter and how it came to be built for the benefit of the members. Thanks to a generous grant from a benefactor in Glasgow LADAS purchased one and has already tried it out on the site of a burial cairn on Lanark Race course! Then Ian Borthwick of LADAS spoke about the use of Global Positioning System in fieldwalking and he explained the physics of it. LADAS acquired this extremely useful piece of equipment through the generosity of South Lanarkshire District Council. Finally Ann McDonald of the Renfrewshire Society and member of ACFA - Association of Certificated Field Archaeologists spoke about the use of an Electronic Distance Meter - an excellent surveying instrument and one that LADAS hopes to get hold of.
After a short tea break a new section was started on the work of 'Societies'. This began with a talk by Chris Hall on the recent Work of the Dunottar Woodland Trust which involved the excavation of an Ice House near Stonehaven . This was followed by a talk by Philip Deakin on the work of the Border Archaeological Society on surveying and excavating cairns. This was followed by a talk by Tam Ward, South Lanarkshire's most celebrated archaeologist who has been responsible for rewriting much of the history of Lanarkshire and Peebleshire. He spoke on the past and present work. The last talk was by Edwina Proudfoot on the Buteshire Archaeological Society and how they had made a very significant contribution to the History of rural settlements on the isle of Bute. The Conference then concluded with a few words from Ed Archer , Conference Organizer and Andrew Selkirk , the Chairman of C.I.A.