I am intrigued that it is apparently possible, in the bizarre world of academic archaeology, for researchers to obtain funding for new projects for which the findings and results have already been announced. Mike Parker Pearson and his team have obtained funding from the Rust Family Foundation (and probably from other directions as well) on the basis of applications which state the results in advance. Hence in MPP's report for the Rust Family Foundation he argues for an extension of funding into the 2018 field season by saying: "Further research is planned for 2018 to confirm that Waun Mawn is a giant stone circle."
(The Welsh origins of Stonehenge
[RFF-2017-23]
Principal Investigator: Michael Parker Pearson
Professor, University College London, Institute of Archaeology
The 2018 grant is listed as:
RFF-2018-65 Parker Pearson, Michael
Imagine what would happen in the earth sciences research field if I was to put in an application for £5,000 on the basis that I intended to confirm that a particular mound out in the countryside was a drumlin and not an esker; or if it was my intention to confirm that the glacier ice affecting South Pembrokeshire was Anglian rather than Devensian. I would be laughed out of court, and told that if I already knew what the result of my research was going to be, there was clearly no need for the research in the first place. And the money would go elsewhere -- quite rightly too.
You couldn't make it up, could you?
Hmmm, the applications for research money you suggest sound like faulty requests to the Dragons on BBC TV!
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe he would sound much less grand with his Grand Designs if his moniker was less grand, and simply MICHAEL PEARSON?