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Yes to everything you say! Not convinced that we are "stuck with it" though, we`ve simply inherited it. I`ts time the story came out sir.Exposure and open discussion have to be the driving forces of change. Archaeology as a profession has to evolve. Perhaps this is a unique time where "what is best" is ridden roughshod over by the dictates of the dollar and powerful but, morally corrupt individuals and corporations. Capitalism has shafted most British institutions but dare I say it, these could be re-instated with the political will. Our finite resource on the other hand-will be shafted irretrievably.A stark choice for us then. Do or do naught. I`m for exposure (oooer) and the ball sits with us. Best wishes sire! 
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David,
I think this is going to be one of those few occassions when we disagree. As I said I dispute the notion that this is the the most important ancient site between the Orkenys and Wiltshire.
It has always amazed me that people do not realise just how good archaeology gets in Yorkshire. Indeed the density of features is no different to Dorchester in Oxfordshire which is also under threat from gravel extraction. What all the excitement about the mesolithic?
10% sampling strategy - what a waste of money and how destructive that would be to the archaeology. What is required is enough infomation to show if the landscape should be preserved in situ. This to my mind is self evident. The evaluation is not the first part of the mitigation strategy.
Equally the setting is protected and this should be sufficient for the planning application to be refused.
Peter
(Who PhD was on the neolithic and bronze age in Yorkshire)
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I agree that enough sampling to preserve the landscape would be the preffered option... but that does not look like it is going to happen... The land belongs to Tarmac.. the application can be approved with no archaeology if they wanted. the fact is this whole landscape will disappear.. the only question is when - but to suggest there is no arcaheology there with a 2% sample... which then means... off you go and quarry... it does not strike me as all that good.
As I say... perhaps I am wrong, and perhaps Jan Hardings and English Heritages assesment of the area over the past 14 years is wrong as well. It is unique and worthy of protecting... a 2% sample that 'proves' there is nothiing there prior to quarrying away is not protecting or preserving.
As I say - I could be wrong, and Tarmac might go... hold on, we now realise that this is part of a massive ritual landscape that we do not fully understand we will now look for other places to quarry (as is there right and business) - but I suspect they want teh archaeology out the way so they can quarry. We (as the colletive archaeologist) do not get another shot at this ....
I still await some comment from those that can answer some of these questions.
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David,
I think you are missing a bigger picture - clearly there is no question of planning permission being passed without an archaeological condition. I must take up the point "we now know this is part of a massice ritual landscape". That was recognised by many including myself over 30 years ago.
I repost the response I put to Oxfordshire County Council over gravel extraction around Oxfordshire. (It was on Britarch some time ago). The local protest group made all sorts of allegations about the county archaeologist which were simply untrue.
There is a basic point that we are running out of gravel which can be extracted without severe environmental damage. The gravel is needed for houses, hospitals as well as roads and airports.
Peter
In my view this particular proposal fails to achieve aim 1 (i) of the
structure plan.
?To protect and enhance the environment and character of Oxfordshire
?
to provide effective protection and enhancement for Oxfordshire
bio-diversity, landscape and heritage.?
Indeed during the course of the consultation new rules on Strategic
Environmental assessment have been issued by the Office of the Deputy
Prime Minister. In my view there is a clear need to implement such
procedures in relation to archaeology and minerals planning in South
Oxfordshire.
The issues are complex: and are about the nature of the interactions
of several different disciplines, Town and Country Planning,
Archaeology, Economic Geology, and Development. There are few
archaeologists with experience of all of these.
The Thames Valley in South Oxfordshire is archaeologically
extra-ordinary. The archaeology of Wallingford, Gatehampton,
Dorchester, and North Stoke is known to most archaeologists and
certainly every student of prehistory. They are sites that
undergraduates are taught about. Adult education students from
Suffolk for example visit this area to study landscape development.
According to English Heritage most of South Oxfordshire south of
Wallingford is a Territorial Oppida of immense proportions.
Dorchester is also an Oppida (in simple terms a late Iron age, 1st
century BC town). Any gravel extraction in South Oxfordshire will
produce archaeological sites of national importance that were not
known at the outset of the planning procedure. In this area there is
one class of monument ? henges - which merits special attention and
is relevant to the structure planning.
There are circa 70 henges known in the UK. A henge is circular
monument of unknown function of late Neolithic and Earlier Bronze Age
date with a bank, usually internal to a ditch, with one or more
entrances. They are assumed to be religious monuments. They occur in
concentrations rather than as isolated monuments. There is one type
known as type IIA ? because it has two entrances and two banks. There
are 7, perhaps 8, examples in the UK which are:
Thornborough North, Middle and South (Yorkshire)
Cana Barn and Thornborough (Yorkshire)
Dorchester Big Rings. (Oxfordshire)
Thwing (was considered to be a class 2A henge but on excavation
proved to be more complex and a class 2 henge with a later outer
ditch added when the monument was fortified) (Yorkshire).
Of these all survive except the Dorchester Big Rings, although Thwing
has been partially destroyed by ploughing and archaeological
excavation.
These monuments are to be compared and contrasted with the circle
henges (a henge with a stone circle within it) of Stonehenge and
Avebury (Wilts). A similar amount of labour was used to construct
them. There are two other examples which are of a comparable size -
Marden (Dorset) and Durrington Walls (Wilts).
The hinterland contains many monuments which are nationally important
in their own right, often due to the Rarity, such as mortuary
enclosures, cursuses and causewayed camps.
It is apparent to me, having studied these most enigmatic monuments,
that the only way we are ever going to understand such monuments is
from the study of the main focuses, the henge itself, and the
hinterland.
It is clear that these monuments are part of vast landscapes of
ritual monuments which were at least in part deliberately laid out
and evolved through time from the period of the Neolithic, with the
construction of causewayed camps and cursuses, to 1400 BC when all
but Stonehenge, Thwing and perhaps Rams Hill were abandoned following
climatic catastrophe.
The south Oxfordshire example can be seen to start in the south at
Gatehampton, as evidenced by a causewayed camp and mortuary
enclosure, and extend as far north as to Abingdon.
This land cannot be seen as a tradable historic environment asset ?
it is a critical asset.
There is a paradox in current thinking about archaeological sites. It
is considered better to physically preserve sites (preservation in
situ) rather to study them by excavation. Excavation is a destructive
process. I believe this to be correct and particularly so when modern
archaeological endeavour has failed to satisfactorily understand this
type of monument. Archaeology is a young discipline and new
techniques are becoming available all the time.
This policy of preservation in situ is government policy.
It is not possible to preserve all archaeological sites, even the
Nationally Important ones. If a Nationally Important site is to be
traded because there is an over riding national interest then it must
be accompanied by excavation in advance of its destruction paid for
by the developer. This is a fundamental principal of PPG 16.
When nationally important remains are to be destroyed by development
their excavation should be the best that archaeology is capable of,
not standard practice, or worse still a lower standard.
Archaeological sites are protected in a number of ways by the
planning system:
Designation by Scheduling (and designation as World Heritage Sites)
and Development Plans.
By development control which prevents development
By default - the costs of mitigation which make development
uneconomic.
In my view this is the case with the area chosen as the best option
for gravel extraction would be uneconomic due to archaeological
costs.
Paradoxically it is not easy to give accurate forecasts on the costs
because, for example, at least half of the archaeological remains are
unknown.
There are very few published costs for archaeological work publicly
available because the information is commercially sensitive. I can
however cite two rules of thumb. A human skeleton costs ?500 to
excavate. The cemetery excavated in advance of the Dorchester bypass
contained 2000 skeletons and thus in modern day terms this would cost
?100,000. In 1963 two weeks were spent excavating it. The area
contains two known cemeteries.
A Romano-British field system would be excavated at regular intervals
so that 10%-20% was excavated. Each section costs ?400 to excavate
and I estimate that about 2000 would be necessary giving a cost of
?8,000,000. In reality rarely do archaeological projects, even the
very large ones, cost this kind of amount. A compromise is made on
what precisely is excavated.
For a number of reasons in this case it would be possible to
establish with a degree of certainty if the archaeological costs were
going to make the gravel uneconomic to excavate. The information
however is not in the public domain.
Archaeological sites can be divided into four types:
The known
The partially known ie there is some evidence for them
The reasonably foreseeable
The unknown.
I estimate that only about 20%-50% of archaeological sites are known.
In many areas archaeological development control works on this
basis, with archaeological assessment and evaluation being required
on developments of over 2 hectares even if there are no known sites
and monuments in the proposed development area.
As a warning as to what can happen I would cite the following
projects: Eton Rowing Lake where the finds can only be described as
spectacular, many of which were not known even following evaluation;
similarly at Gatehampton I would cite the Palaeolithic flint working
site that was unexpectedly found. This is a major difficulty for
strategic planning.
I have recently considered the methodology for master planning. One
of my conclusions was that at the strategic level the unknown
component can and should be taken into account. To an extent this is
done in mineral plans. The Berkshire minerals plan makes it clear for
example that just because land has been designated for mineral
extraction it does not mean that there are no archaeological sites
present which would stop planning permission being granted. There is
nothing similar in the Oxfordshire Structure Plan.
In my view there are other fundamental difficulties. It is absurd for
a structure plan to identify areas as geologically economically
viable whilst ignoring the archaeological costs when these can render
areas of mineral uneconomic.
I would identify a difficulty in county based planning - if a
particular type of monument is concentrated in a particular county it
may seem to be more common from a local perspective than it actually
is nationally. When dealing with archaeological sites of national
importance a national perspective must be taken. The hinterland of
the Thornborough henges is currently subject to a similar structure
plan proposal.
Thus, co-incidentally, the nature of structure planning is such that
it is possible that only one example of one of the rarest types of
monument with its landscape and hinterland will survive in the UK
within a ten year period.
I believe there are other flaws in the way archaeology has been
handled in the proposed structure plan. For example PPG 16 is clear:
unscheduled nationally important sites are treated in exactly the
same way as scheduled sites. Thus regarding unscheduled nationally
important sites as being less of a constraint than scheduled ones is
not consistent with current policy, or the policies within the
structure plan. Some Ancient Monuments, even if they are Nationally
Important, cannot be scheduled for example. The system of designation
for the historic environment is being reviewed. A single system of
protection is being proposed. It may therefore be in force before
this structure plan is.
Other real world considerations must also be taken into account -
these are risk and time. There is no fall back position - all the
other possible areas for gravel extraction have been eliminated from
the process.
Is there sufficient time for the strategic objectives to be achieved?
What are the risks that budget or time over runs will mean that the
strategic objectives could not be achieved?
What are the risks that sufficient archaeology is found during the
evaluation to prevent gravel extraction taking place?
What are the consequences if the strategic objectives cannot be
achieved?
The structure plan covers the period 2006-2016. If it is assumed that
the structure plan is approved by 2005 the timetable for the
availability of the gravel would be as follows:
Archaeological Assessment including including geophysics: 6-12 months
- end 2005. Geophysics can only be undertaken when no crops are
present on the land, or compensation has to be paid.
Consideration of assessment, project planning, tender competition and
evaluation: 12-18 months - end 2006. Evaluation can only be
undertaken when no crops are present on the land, or compensation has
to be paid. Two per cent of the extraction area would normally be
excavated equating to: 3 ha.
Planning Permission applied for and planning permission granted
following appeal: 12 months - end 2007.
Project Planning and tender competition: 6 months - middle 2008.
Archaeological Excavation of processing plant and first year?s gravel
extraction: 12 months - middle 2009-2010.
Construction of processing plant: 2011.
Gravel extraction: 2011.
The risks of cancellation or major difficulty are:
The system of designation for the historic environment changes such
that landscapes such as this are protected.
The evaluation finds many new sites that are nationally important,
and some are scheduled, so that too small an area is available for
mineral operation.
The extent of the archaeological remains found during evaluation is
such that it is uneconomic to extract the gravel.
The value of the mineral declines making the extraction uneconomic if
the archaeological costs have made the extraction economically
marginal.
The costs of archaeological excavation rise due to:
an increase in archaeological wages
the discovery of new techniques which become routinely applied for
example laser scanning of human remains
changes in what a developer is expected to pay for.
The risks of delay are:
The evaluation finds so many new sites that the evaluation overruns.
The excavation reveals far more than the evaluation suggests and
there is an over run of time.
Thus there is a risk that the gravel would not be available until
from 2013.
Therefore it is clear that there is a clear high risk that the
strategic objectives would not be achievable in any event.
It is my view that it is going to have to be accepted at some point
in the future that there is no gravel left in South Oxfordshire which
can be extracted without unacceptable harm, or that is economic to
extract because of the archaeological costs. In my view that point
has arrived.
Dr Peter Wardle 19/10/2003
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This is the sort of info we need to read... . It is real info that is needed.. from all sides.
If gravel is required... must it come from here? if ploughing is damaging the sites now.. why is it not put into set aside ( which is possible) as Tarmac actually own the land. so there is this strange message coming out that after 20 years the archaeology will be destroyed by ploughing (on land owned by Tarmac) unless the area is quarried now (by Tarmac who own the land)
The rights and wrongs can be argued... as you so eloquently put in the Oxfordshire case... but all I see so far is a will (a real will) to quarry the area, no matter what is found... in fact, with a sample that seems to be suggested, it is more likely that the area will be approved, and then... shock horror... perhaps more archaeology appears (as happened before) during the process of quarrying... not prior to the application being decided.
I expect that gravel will be extracted until we have exhausted it all? then what?
As English Heritage say
?Further to the Ladybridge Farm application, Tarmac have stated that they will seek the inclusion of the area adjacent to the henges, referred to as Thornborough Moor, as a ?preferred area? for aggregates extraction when the existing Minerals Local Plan is reviewed during 2004 ? 06.
English Heritage believes that any extraction within the Thornborough Moor area would have a substantial and detrimental impact on the archaeological environment and the setting of the henges. We are therefore resisting the inclusion of Thornborough Moor as a ?preferred area? in the revised Minerals Local Plan through our role as statutory consultee in the planning process.?
It seems that Tarmac want to quarry, no matter what the archaeology outcome.
Gravel for another 5 years (there is only enough gravel in North Yorkshire for 13 years (in the 1997 Minerals report) or archaeology to be studied??
David
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who owned the land before Tarmac?
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er......answers please.. it was not me anyway
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David,
Why havent you been down the pub tonight. The land ownership is in many ways irrelevant. The normal form is an option on the gravel. Of course Tarmac want to extract the gravel at any cost. That is what gravel companies do.
To make things clear I am arguing about the use of superlatives.
Dr Peter Wardle.
Author of "bronze age pottery from eastern Yorkshire and a study of the site at Thwing and its environs. An examination of the pottery, using ceramic petrology, from the Neolithic and Bronze Age henge monument and hillfort at Thwing in the wider context of its production and distribution in Southern Britain." University of Bradford unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Thw work was sponsored by The Prehistoric Research Section of the Yorkshire Archaeology Society with the blessing of the funding body HBMC - English Heritage. Published as BAR 225.
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Why go out when you can drink at home....hic!!
I too know Yorkshire well... working from York to teh Wolds on countless excavations... the whole damn place is special, from Duggleby Howe to Kirkdale (a personal fave!) from the Devils Arrows to the Gypsy Race.
I guess I just cant think of another area so rich in this kind of archaeology apart from Wiltshire and the Orkneys... an as such it is the best bit inbetween! But then Yorkshire always was Gods own County!
I can't think of a triple henge of such size anywhere else though?[?]
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Little bit bored with being told what is or is`nt relevant by consultants bent on advertising their PhD on here. Land ownership and applicable law can have a few surprises if investigated properly. What does a clearly earth-shattering PhD on pottery do for the Thornborough henges in the current context? A look at Thornborough Henges on a standard Google search throws up a good few websites with plenty of further information, petitions and details of Action/Pressure groups. What is inspiring is that the main group has employed a campaigning lawyer! Excellent! Another group is intent upon exposing similar lapses where the nations heritage is being, shall we say, manipulated, by the sexually handicapped.Superb.:face-approve:
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