that is knowable about prehistory, and all present events
are fully documented as computerised information, the factual
historian will he out of business, I feel. But as I see it,
there could be endless discussion of the facts available, in
an endeavour to squeeze something more from them by
deduction. This goes on and on. However, I would like to
ask another question: whether in a thousand years from hence,
mankind will have an interest in knowledge of the distant
past. Is this present interest a passing phase? Apart from
a measure of ancestor-worship and a natural astonishment
when some human artifact was dug up, did our ancestors
really care twopence about archaeology? Even today, very
few people have any interest even in their own grandparents
and still less in the remote past, in spite of the
stimulation by television and so on. Still the great
majority of people, especially the countryman, think of
things of the past as potentially saleable objects. And no
modern developer could excell the gusto with which the 15th
century wool merchant pulled down a Norman church to build
another one in the Perpendicular Style for his own greater
glory. The present interest of the cultured few is
relatively recent and may not endure.
Masefield: What advice would you give to a youngster
who says he wants to take up archaeology as a career?
Harley: There's a warning to start with. You know, a
lot of people go to university today, to go to university,
and they want to get by fairly easily. They steer quickly
away from such subjects as natural science which requires
hard study. I fear that archaeology is being thought of by
some as an easy way to a degree. It is not. The tripos in
anthropology and archaeology at Cambridge is a very hard row
to hoe, and a graduate from that course could expect a museum
post without much difficulty, I would think. But the lesser
courses in general archaeology may not lead any further than
a rather poor degree in sociology. Prospects there are not
bright. What is in demand, of course, is the technologist,
with a good understanding of both physics and chemistry, and
for the modern devices for archaeological research based on
these sciences. If this is combined with an appreciation
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