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15th December 2004, 03:35 PM
I am afraid that this already happens, with archaeology enshrined in the planning process (see NPPG16) Of course we can only protect the sites we know about or can assume may be in that area based upon other evidence. We have to act within the law though... so asking for 5% evaluations in a field that has been a field since 1620 is not going to be approved unless we can provide real evidence why it should be... the process is getting better as detectoriss come forward and tell us (in teh council) about these unknown sites.
We do also have provision for 'unexpected archaeology' but we all know of developers that find and hide sites - but we can't act if we ain't told... so if you se a site being destroyed... tell some one... best is the County Archaeologist (a full list is available on BAJR Who's Who...
Thanks for that PetetheDig... nice to see you here..
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7th January 2005, 05:15 PM
The quality of a watching brief depends largely on the following;
1.the quality of the DBA/method statement and project design.
2.a willingness on the part of curators to expand research frameworks and step outside of simply trusting in the SMR
3.competent consultants/fieldworkers and, most importantly,
4. a Curator with teeth.
"value" is rather a subjective ,measurement particularly when standards vary nationwide and are not effectively policed by the grown-ups.
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9th January 2005, 12:13 PM
Fancy writing something for the Digger troll??
Something alobg these lines??
go on .... there is a new one coming up in Feb...
thedigger@email.com
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12th January 2005, 05:55 PM
As one of those (often maligned) curators I am very interested to see that the value of investigation is an active debate. I find that watching briefs are extremely useful when initiating investigation in areas with potential but little actual evidence produced from excavations or other interventions. For example watching briefs on single houses (even extensions) within villages which are referenced in Domesday but have never had any actual archaeological investigation. If a watching brief turns up physical evidence then a later planning application in a nearby plot can be evaluated as the evidence exists to support this requirement. The trick is to balance the scale of development against the significance of potential remains. If no evidence exists upon which to argue for an evaluation you can find yourself on the losing side in an appeal!
Steven
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As soon as you put a financial value on something, like a sliding scale type affair the bean counters will factor it in and decide whether they would be better off paying the fine or digging the archaeology. do you honestly think this is the way forward?
deep
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Had to undertake watching briefs over a 20 hectare regeneration site. Consultants had agreed that the developer would carry out stripping in one area at a time. Over a year later, I was still running from one phase to the next as the developer dug where and when he pleased-usually simultaneously. The consultants did nothing as they were making a good profit margin, the county mounty told me, and I quote, "stop making things any more complicated than they already are". The value of a watching brief depends upon the professionalism of the consultants, the curators, the field archaeologist and, the planning authorities. Money casts a long shadow over the principles and ethics of what is right for the archaeology.Properly carried out-good things come from them. Carried out in a commercial environment? not so sure...
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Sounds familiar, And what happens when something inevitably turns up? Do you stop running back and forth to dig it, thus abandoning the rest of the WB?
I'm sure watching briefs are often only a salve to the conscience of the curator. Pity the poor archaeologist who has to do those projects. I know far too many archaeologists who throw up their hands in that situation and find absolutely nothing. I hope the Curator takes into account the often ridiculous methodology when limited results come back.
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You bet we do.... however in return... it is up to you... the person in teh field to call teh curator and say... "hey... this is interesting.. I think it is worth further investigation...!" then we can help achieve that .. rather than the silent grumble it is more useful to tell us at the time. A watching brief has caveats (you will have time to excavate features... however if it become complex then the mitigation comes into force.) A watching brief is not a means to an end.. it is a risk for teh developer.. as in teh envent of significant archaeology appearing... then the work must stop...
Trust me!!
personally I only ask for WBs when I think that the potential is so low that it is unlikely that anything will appear.. but just want o be sure.
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All well and good, but what is considered "significant" varies depending on where you are working. I once tried to contact the curator when I found what I considered significant archaeology in a WB in a region that shall remain nameless. My boss even supported me. But said curator was unreachable, and the job was finished long before he was finally reached 3 days later. What then? I now don't bother because it has been made clear to me that complex archaeology, that most field archaeologist would consider significant, is not seen that way in the eyes of that curator. My reports make it quite clear the archaeology that has been lost to the development, but not once has the curator come back to me and said "that should perhaps have been stopped". The message is quite clear that he does not consider it significant enough.
I'm sympathetic enough to understand that most curators are overworked, but not being able to reach them means that the WB can never be stopped regardless of findings. Now most of the WB's I do in this region are like this. Negative ones are an extreme rarity. It's not even as if these are sites where nothing is expected. I'm talking about medieval villages or towns near to the church.
The worst part about it is that in most of said curators WB WSI's the archaeologist is not even expected to be present until AFTER trenches are dug, and is only required to view open foundations. To canny developers that's great, they don't even notify us until just before the concrete goes in. How would I stop those jobs?
On a slightly different tack can any curators out there tell me what the value of a watching brief after an evaluation is? I've seen plenty of largely urban evaluations with seemingly good archaeology present only followed up with a watching brief where of course the results are much poorer. Surely I can't justify stopping a watching brief like that, as the curator had all the necessary information from the evaluation phase. In those cases it would take me weeks if not months to dig all the affected features, so I end up digging the first 2 or 3 and recording all the rest in section.
Is it perhaps that the region in which I work is so staggeringly full of archaeology that the rules that apply elsewhere just don't here? The unwritten rule here is the archaeologist works around the developers and does not stop them for anything short of a body or a mosaic.
After reading some of the views on this thread I'm very very confused as to what curators actually expect, and I'm convinced it varies massively region to region. Perhaps you should compare notes.[?]
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A watching brief is just that a watching brief and is always going to be a compromise. if something does turn up the developer has to understand that there must be time allowed to at least dig and record it.
and yes when you're watching three machines digging it can get kinda hectic.
deep
