Page 412 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

Chapter 15
Reports and Publications
I. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Publication is an archaeological responsibility. There is no point in doing archaeology unless the work is properly published in the form of a final excavation report. This type of report normally collates all the information and material from the excavation and the subsequent research and, together with a detailed discussion of the findings, gives an analysis of the results and a conclusion. If this is not done, it can be argued that the work is incomplete. Few archaeologists would disagree publication is an essen- tial part of archaeology.
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the problems and methods of writing archaeological reports of various types, and the possible avenues of publication for this material. In the 1950s, publication of archaeological reports was relatively simple, and it was not difficult to find publishers who would accept a good quality archaeological report for publication. In the 1960s, publication costs started to increase, and it became more and more difficult to publish full reports. There was, at that time, a growing concern voiced by a number of authors that the future of full archaeologi- cal reports was in jeopardy since it was becoming increasingly hard to find publishers (see for example Grinsell et al., 1974). Although it was generally accepted that archaeologists should publish their work in full, there was a minority, notably the publishers, who suggested that the details should be deposited in an archive and only the summary published. This was a difficult period for the maritime archaeologist because there were no journals specializing in maritime archaeology, nor any archaeological
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