The United Kingdom (sometimes referred to as Britain) has a long and rich history of human settlement. Traces of buildings, tools, and art can be found from periods going back many thousands of years: from the Stone Age, through the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the time of the Roman colonization, the Middle Ages, up to the beginnings of the industrial age. Yet for most of the twentieth century, the science of archaeology — dedicated to uncovering and studying old cultural artifacts—was faced with serious problems and limitations in Britain.
First, many valuable artifacts were lost to construction projects. The growth of Britain's population, especially from the 1950s on, spurred a lot of new construction in British cities, towns, and villages. While digging foundations for new buildings, the builders often uncovered archaeologically valuable sites. Usually, however, they proceeded with the construction and did not preserve the artifacts. Many archaeologically precious artifacts were therefore destroyed.
Second, many archaeologists felt that the financial support for archaeological research was inadequate.
For most of the twentieth century, archaeology was funded mostly through government funds and grants, which allowed archaeologists to investigate a handful of the most important sites but which left hundreds of other interesting projects without support. Furthermore, changing government priorities brought about periodic reductions in funding.
Third, it was difficult to have a career in archaeology. Archaeology jobs were to be found at universities or with a few government agencies, but there were never many positions available. Many people who wanted to become archaeologists ended up pursuing other careers and contributing to archaeological research only as unpaid amateurs.
The article states the limitations archaeologists had in the Middle Ages in Britain and provides three reasons of support. However, the professor explains the guidelines that created a change in Archaeology after 1990 to improve the situation and refutes each of the author's claims.
First, the reading claims that a lot of artifacts were lost in construction because the increase of Britain's population. When building up the new residence, constructors companies did not save archaeological artifacts, so these were completely damaged. The professor refutes this point by saying that with the new guideline, every construction had to be examined by archaeologists as a requirement. Moreover, the government and archaeologists had to get into an agreement to make a plan before any construction could be achieved.
Second, the reading posits that archaeologists also had financial difficulties. It mentions that the government had to give the money to archaeologists in order to investigate interesting sites. Thus, when the government cut off the funding to search, these professionals could not continue their work. However, the professor says that the new guideline established that the company was responsible to pay archaeologists rather than the government. As a result, more studies could have been done than ever before.
Third, the reading says that archaeology was an arduous career because there were not many positions to fill. The professor opposes to this point by saying that the guide provides more jobs than ever in the past. According to the professor, because all the stages in the process had to be reviewed by the professionals to do research, works required more archaeologists. Hence, these positions were more in demand than ever before.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 25 in 30
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 12
No. of Words: 275 250
No. of Characters: 1456 1200
No. of Different Words: 146 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.072 4.2
Average Word Length: 5.295 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.135 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 85 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.526 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.349 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.071 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 4