Of course, EIA work is not always as orderly and positive as described above. One common problem is insufficient money to do the job right. Sometimes fieldwork is rushed, or analysis and reporting are delayed or not carried out at all. In the context of surveys and other assessment studies, this can lead to faulty data upon which to make decisions about the significance of impacts or the appropriateness of mitigation measures. In the context of mitigation, it can defeat the whole purpose of archaeological data recovery, since the data are not made available for future research.
Another common problem is that some project proponents, government agencies, and whole governments treat the EIA process as merely an administrative hurdle that must be surmounted on the way to getting a project funded, approved, or constructed. They may schedule the work too late to really influence decisionmaking about whether and how to proceed with a project; they may shortchange the research, and they may ignore the results. Their minds may be made up before the analysis even begins.
Some regulatory agencies, EIA companies, and even archaeologists themselves apply arbitrary and inflexible standards to EIA work - rigidly prescribing how surveys are to be done, for example, and how things are to be recorded. This can lead to significant inefficiencies, and to rote, pointless studies that merely masquerade as scholarly research.
The ways in which EIA regulations interface with national and other archaeological and historic landmarks laws can also present problems. In some countries, ‘heritage’ laws protect only sites or buildings that have been recorded on some kind of schedule or register - which means, of course, that they have to have been found and studied to some extent before they are considered in planning. When a project is planned in an area that has never been fully surveyed for archaeological sites - or even one that has been surveyed, but where new discoveries are likely - there may be no sites that have been scheduled or registered, but sites may actually be there, and they may be very important. The logic of EIA demands that such sites be identified and considered, but the country’s heritage laws do not provide for it. The people organizing a piece of EIA research may know no better than to identify only those places already on the schedule. The result, of course, is that very significant sites can be destroyed without consideration for preservation or data recovery.
Sometimes people working on an EIA are treated as nuisances by project planners and construction workers, finding themselves ignored, expelled from project sites, and castigated as obstructionists. This can be traumatic for the individuals involved, but more importantly it can impede their work and result in a failure to consider and address significant archaeological sites and other aspects of the environment. Regarding EIA as a mere nuisance is one reason assessments are sometimes done too late to have any influence on planning.
Perhaps worst of all, some private companies and government ministries that do or contract for EIA work encourage those working for them to ignore or play down a project’s adverse effects, including effects on archaeological sites, even threatening noncompliant employees with loss of their jobs. It may be made very clear that if one wants to keep one’s position, or be part of the next contract, one had better not regard that newly discovered site as significant, request that obviously necessary bit of laboratory analysis, or pay attention to that group of descendants who want to save their ancestors’ bones. If one bends to these pressures, one not only damages one’s own reputation, but can be a party to unnecessary archaeological destruction and other environmental impacts.
Archaeologists and others working on EIA also often find themselves caught between project proponents and opponents, each intent on having its way at the expense of the other and demanding that the EIA analysts take sides. This can bring about high levels of frustration, depression, and burnout. Working in EIA can also be depressing because one is constantly confronted with the destruction of archaeological sites, traditional communities, beautiful buildings, and pristine natural landscapes. However much one is able to arrange for these impacts to be mitigated, the experience of loss can take a toll on one’s mental health.
Some academic and research archaeologists look down on EIA archaeology as intellectually undemanding second-class research. This, too, can be unpleasant for archaeologists specializing in EIA, but most take it philosophically, holding that their critics have little knowledge of the matter and are merely expressing elitist bias. In fact, there is EIA-related archaeology that is excellent and EIA-related archaeology that is very badly done, but the same can be said for any other kind of archaeological research. Most experienced EIA archaeologists also find that archaeological research is overrated as an end in itself. In EIA practice an archaeologist can contribute to making the world a better place, to preservation of the planet’s natural and cultural heritage, and to the continued existence of indigenous and other cultures. One of the best parts of working in EIA is that an archaeologist can become more than just an archaeologist.
World History
