Wellbeing and commercial archaeology
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 09/01/2024

Wellbeing is a thing recognised almost universally as being important, easy to recognise but not always as easy to define, promote or measure. Starting with Plato and throughout history we have tried to define happiness and wellbeing, and since the industrial revolution the wellbeing of people in the workplace has been the subject of many studies.

In this paper I will give a very brief overview of the changing ideas of wellbeing at work, in individual lives and society, and examine how these ideas affect and are affected by commercial archaeology. The practice of archaeology itself is widely seen -at least by those of us involved in it-as a source of wellbeing, both for the people engaged in it and for society at large. Was this ever really the case, and is this perception still valid in an increasingly complex and competitive market? If not, how can we make it so? Are there any lessons we might teach the wider commercial world, or anything we could learn from it?


Cornelius Barton, Partner and Commercial Archaeologist, L–P: Archaeology