NARRATOR：

Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.

FEMALE PROFESSOR：

In 1990, new rules and guidelines were adopted in the United Kingdom that have changed the whole field of archaeology in that country.

The new guidelines improved the situation in all three areas discussed in the passage.

First, the new guidelines state that before any construction project can start, the construction site has to be examined by archaeologists to see whether the site is of archaeological interest or value.

If the site is of archaeological interest, the next step is for the builders, archaeologists, and local government officials to get together and make a plan for preserving the archaeological artifacts, either by building around them, or by excavating and documenting them properly before the construction is allowed to proceed.

Second, an important part of the new guidelines is a rule that any archaeological work done on the construction site will be paid for by the construction company, not by the government.

The construction company has to pay for the initial examination of the site, and then for all the work carried out under the preservation plan.

This is a whole new source of financial support.

The funding from construction companies has allowed researchers to study a far greater range of archaeological sites than they could in the past.

Last, the new guidelines provide a lot of paid work for archaeologists, work that didn’t exist before.

Expert archaeologists are now hired at all stages of the process—to examine the site for archaeological value, then to help draw up the preservation plan, to do the research in a professional scientific manner, and finally to process the data and write reports and articles.

The increased job and career opportunities in archaeology have increased the number of professional archaeologists in Britain, which is now the highest it’s ever been.