British archaeology and British archaeologists now live in a fast-changing world. There are new administrative agencies and frameworks, major reviews of monument protection and of university archaeology, a fundamental shift in the economics of the countryside, and a new mood in which an entrepreneurial heritage industry has become conspicuous. In 1986 the Environment Select Committee of the House of Commons investigated historic buildings and ancient monuments. Peter Fowler here reports the attitudes it brought to its study of archaeology and history, and the assessments of their value that it made. -- AATA