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http://www.ice.org.uk/bookshop/bookshop_...0727732378
ICE Conditions of Contract for Archaeological Investigation ?30
and
http://www.ice.org.uk/bookshop/bookshop_...0727732897
ICE Conditions of Contract for Archaeological Investigation. Guidance Notes ?20
Not a document to be pdf'd onto a website I am afraid...
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
Mohandas Gandhi
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I believe I can claim a first: am I the first BAJR contributor to have been patronized by Unit?
Michael has (again) hit the proverbial nail fair and square. But why, Unit, do you demand that everything is done for you by others? While still an undergrad I purchased my own copy of the ICE and Guidance Notes as it seemed an obvious and essential thing to do. However, I had the advantage of being a mature student with many years of previous experience in the construction industry, and there was indeed no hint to "conventional" students that contracts, or a real world outside narrow archaeological confines, exists.
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Posted by Unit of 1:
Quote:quote:What don?t the ifa or you make a copy available on their web site?
It is not made available for free on websites because it is copyright material that is available to buy. That seems perfectly fair.
Quote:quote:
quote:
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We recommend that, irrespective of whether the planning authority requests a pre-determination evaluation, clients should commission such works before finalising project budgets and preferable before site purchase.
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Would you have signed up the client to an ice contract before site purchase?
Yes, and I frequently have done - clients often investigate land before they buy it, with the agreement of the landowner, which seems only sensible. They are spending tousands to make sure they aren't at risk of wasting millions by buying land they can't develop.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
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Shouldn?t archaeologists get their own ?copyright? material then, might make us look a bit more professional?
Is there any advantage to the seller/owner of the archaeology that the archaeologists are representing the buyers interests?
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Quote:quote:Originally posted by Unitof1
Is there any advantage to the seller/owner of the archaeology that the archaeologists are representing the buyers interests?
Yes. The seller wants to sell potential development land that they own - the buyer wants to be sure that there are no 'buried surprises'.
If you're buying a house you get a survey done to ensure that it is not going to fall down. If you're buying potential development land you want to be sure it is developable. If buyers won't purchase the land without archaeological investigation then there will be a big advantage in agreeing to this.
If the seller has agreed that they will foot the bill for any archaeological mitigation works on the site then there would be a definite advantage for them in pre-sale investigations.
I don't think the owner would be interested in being the "owner of the archaeology" - they are interested in being owners of potential development land. Archaeology is simply a factor that needs to be taken into account when looking at the potential costs/value of the land.
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would the ice contract structure give the field archaeologist any advantage in the pre purchase situation?
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inVis, I did not mean to patronise you, unfortunately my posts get edited by our hosts, sweet poetry for you all, no doubt, and my last comment following you was wiped out so my following comment was aimed at them buggers, I cant remember what I had put?.
I commend you on your student endeavours. I too was a mature student but fortunately I had not spent my previous employment in the construction industry. Having mistakenly come into commercial archaeology I find that archaeology in Britain is dominated by the relationship to civil engineering and presumably its backers our good friends the bankers, so that we have archaeologists who work (or who have) in the planning departments of authorities, consultants who work for developers and it seems to me companies and company practise which bow to this relationship. I see the ice contract as an example of this dominance over the ifa. What I do is relatively straight forward, I dig holes for profit. If I was to do this in a private sense I would have to value the archaeology, own the land and undertake the excavation myself. I might expect to generate copyright, artefacts and in extremely rare cases monumental displays. I take these principles when I negotiate in the work place and when I consider contracts and others who call themsleves archaeologists.
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Ah I see, thank you for explaining and I apologize for my mistake, Unit.
I confess I'm not sure I understand your concerns though. Naturally commercial archaeology is related (in fact I would say part of) the construction industry in the wider sense: it would not otherwise exist. I see nothing sinister or dominating about the ICE CoC - it is simply a standard form of contract basaed on a universally used model from civil engineering. Building construction (as opposed to civils) uses a range of very similar forms, the JCT standard forms which I (possibly alone in the world) think might have been a better model, but the gist of them of very similar.
There is no compulsion to use the ICE CoC, and any one or more clauses can be amended for a particular contract if deemed necessary, but there are huge advantages in everyone using standard forms: it is crazy not to. No-one in construction thinks twice about it. The fact that they are based on an existing model is neither here nor there: commercial archaeology is ostensibly modelled on the construction industry (hence the terminology) and it makes perfect sense to utilise such a prototype.
I have long been a supporter (if that's the word) of Michael Heaton's views and have in the past referred BAJRites to his piece in TA on proper measurement of archaeological works. His other views that are given in his presentation piece you linked to make equal sense to me. I suspect that a lot of woes would be improved - pay, conditions, respect etc - if archaeology got its act together and operated as a part of construction rather than the slighlty woolly, misunderstood heroic stance it seems to adopt.
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Quote:quote:Naturally commercial archaeology is related (in fact I would say part of) the construction industry in the wider sense: it would not otherwise exist
it is very persuasive but something that archaeologists should probably see beyond particularly if an archaeologist should value archaeologys academic worth.
I too am a big fan of Mr Heaton. I can read virtually all of his stuff and think it all relevant to me. He is obviously someone who has gone off on their own and presumably filled in a self assessment in which he has possibly declared that he is an archaeologist as an undertaking. I like the idea that he in the midst of Wessex.
The example of archaeologists being involved before finalising project budgets and preferably before site purchase is a case in point, which as I have built my client base is a situation that I have become involved with.
But
I can also wonder whether Mr Heaton declared himself an archaeological consultant and wonder whether consultancy might have clouded his view to what an archaeologists does and the contractual environment an archaeologists should work in.
So in the example of finalising project budgets before site purchase I do have a problem with working for the buyer/developer. I want all landowners to hold their archaeological deposits on their land as an asset to be protected and which has value. If it was my land that is what I would do. I work in a predominantly rural landscape and the massive and overriding threat to my archaeological resource is from agriculture. Ever since rescue times we have been sending little search parties off into the rural hinterland and all have returned telling use how horrendous it is, civil engineering is barely a problem. But meanwhile civil engineering has had foisted on archaeology a polluter pays principle and basically turned archaeology as an undertaking into pollution and a liability to the landowner.
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Posted by Unit of 1:
Quote:quote:would the ice contract structure give the field archaeologist any advantage in the pre purchase situation?
Not specifically, but then that is not what it is for.
All contracts embody some risk to both parties. One of the main purposes of any standard Conditions of Contract, including the ICE CoC for Archaeological Investigation, is to limit those risks as much as possible, and to make a fair division of risk between the Contractor (i.e. the archaeological unit) and the Employer (usually the developer or their consultant).
To that extent, any application of the CoC could be said to advantage the archaeologist concerned, because the more traditional ways of employing their services usually exposes them to unlimited risk (which they are usually completely unaware of, due to their lack of knowledge about contract law).
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
