Research be seen as integral to development excavation.

[Dinosaur]

Sorry Jack. I meant of course research and not excavation (and I suggested geophysical survey as a potential non-intrusive addition). I realise in muddling the words I totally confused my meaning. What I was trying to say was that the contractor (or the developer) shouldn't be allowed to get away with the excuse of 'I only want to pay for works directly associated with my 2m x 2m hole' if additional research could place that 'hole' in a greater 'whole'..... In the setting of a 'known' RB/IA settlement I would have thought that not too difficult without the need for making the trench bigger, destroying more than the minimum of the archaeological resource or spending any longer time 'onsite' than required for the immediate works. That was all. Apologies for my mistake ....

Sorry, not been joining in for a few days, been out doing some trial trenches in a small corner of one of those town-sized 'sites'. Have successfully failed to achieve any of the 'research objectives' for the holes, just raised a whole new set of questions which can't be resolved without digging the whole site (which would, of course, answer the original objectives too). The building that's going up won't impact directly in a big way on the archaeology, just shallow wall footings/services and the rest jacked up on pilings, so all I've achieved (and for the next few days) is to be able to say 'yes, you're going to punch some small round holes through whatever's down there' which frankly we knew anyway. All I can do is meticulously record the mysteries I have found. I've completely failed to find anything agreeing with the existing research and there's nowhere to go without a million-pound dig which ain't gonna happen and no county-mountie would be insane enough to suggest it....:face-stir:

Jack - you still having trouble writing that report then? - having seen your site plans I know the problem :0

[Jack]

Nah onto a 'whole site' final report now....yum!

[nick the fifer]

The key change in PPS 5 is that the mitigation is not just recording and it in many respects never has been.

A developer is mitigating damage and if siomething is not been damaged then it does get looked at simple. Both PPS 5 and PPG 16 regard preservation as the best option. As excavation is destructive the notion that a bigger area should be examined is a none starter.

Peter

It seems clear to me (provided one can decode official policy speak) that where HE12.1 says "record and advance understanding" the latter is intended to be research as discussed here.

I am not clear, however that "examining a larger area" is so much of a non-starter when one considers that that HE12.3 states "loss of the whole or a material part of a heritage asset’s significance". This would depend on how a planning authority might interpret "examine" - i.e. not simply excavation - and "significance", which DCMS and EH at least assume could mean development in the setting of a heritage assets where the asset itself is not necessarily damaged or destroyed.

Of course, the underpinning principle is "proportionality" (but again that is a rather flexible concept). What might be "proportionate" for a developer - e.g. the minimum review of HER and a "desk-based evaluation" as in HE6.1 - may not be "proportionate" for a planning authority.

[Madweasels]

Apropos 'research' in the context of developer-led archaeology and University based units, I found this quite interesting and somewhat puzzling. It is a quote from Anthony Sinclair's excellent paper again - Archaeology and the Global Economic Crisis (Nathan Schlanger and Kenneth Aitchison eds.). Extract from page 37.

...academic archaeology has followed a specific trajectory in the last fifteen years, that is quite different
to that followed by professional, developer-funded archaeology; and this has
led to a wide gulf separating these two different forms of practice. Much, if not
most, of the archaeological fieldwork and publication that results from developer-
funded archaeology would not be recognised (within an RAE), as “research
of world or international quality”, the standard to which all RAE publications
aim9; and archaeologists in higher education have become progressively removed
from this developer-funded work, and knowledge of its findings. Moreover,
archaeological fieldwork projects run by academic archaeologists, and funded as
research projects, are driven by their RAE submittable, potential written outputs
(usually derived from extensive post-excavation analysis and interpretation)...

And on page 38,
...Moreover, as noted above, the publications
of these units do not make much impact within the RAE driven HE sector. In
the last two years the units at Sheffield, and Manchester have been closed down in
their host institutions; others are under close scrutiny...


(Madweasels again) Something not quite right here, I think, if the product of developer-led work is lower-tier research, as far as RAE is concerned. Surely, this needs reassessing.

[Dinosaur]

Academics don't seem to have any problem referring to developer-funded sites as long as they are published and include something interesting or shiny that they can use to bulk-out their arguement....I've found my name cropping up in all sorts of bibliographies which is pretty good considering how few of my publication reports have ever made it past the 'in prep.' or 'forthcoming' stage. Lets face it, they would be rather short of material these days if they totally ignored the commercial sector....would just be nice if a few more of them would dip their toes into the sea of grey literature once in a while, might encourage commercial archaeologists to up their 'academic' standards? :face-stir:

- actually, since we do use the grey literature resource doesn't that make us.....ooohhh, heading into dangerous territory......

[Madweasels]

I found Sinclair's comment above puzzling because I do not understand exactly what the RAE standards are - obviously they need to be 'of world or international quality'. But what does that mean? Quality of 'research' has to be world class? Well, although we all might claim that standards have dropped because of competitive tendering, I still see some very high quality - world class - method, presentation and interpretation among the majoirty of the stuff published by many of the units over the last couple of decades. Much of it, for god's sake, is refereed by HE academics! How then does it not qualify for RAE inclusion - or is this a subtle way of saying that the quality of work of some uni based units was not as good as others? Not sure I would agree with that either.

I think we need FAME to do a bit more work advocating the high standard of its academic product and achievement to the HE sector and whoever is left to fund it in the future. OK, I will get the 'but grey lit is dull and lifeless' but there has been a great deal of high quality research, much of it accessible to different audiences, over the last 20 years.

But anyway - having said all that, I see from CBA's twitter feed that the HE Academy for History, Classics and Archaeology will cease to exist from 2012. Another nail in the coffin!

[Dinosaur]

What's clearly needed is some mechanism for peer-review of the 'academic' content of commercial reporting? Currently it just gets passed or failed by a curator who very possibly doesn't have a PhD in whatever material you've just found. During a site meeting last week including a curator and the archaeological consultant it became immediately apparent that I was the only person there who knew anything at all about 11th century Norman castle ramparts, and short of me supplying them with a very long bibliography on the subject I'm guessing whatever I've said in the report will get passed through pretty much as written, whereas I'd actually welcome some input/peer-review from someone who knows more than me about such things (there must be someone out there)

[GnomeKing]

"whats clearly need is....peer review"

but how?

[BAJR]

As with everything... the "but How" question is what we need to consider. What mechanisms can be put in place, what criteria? And of course the need for curatorial impartial control

[vulpes]

Journal articles for national journals are usually peer reviewed. I always pass on reports with any scientific content to the EH Science Advisor who would consult with other experts as necessary on this content. Dinosaur, I'm sure if you put a request on here, for example, someone could point you in the right direction. But if you have a bibliography you should have an idea of who would be an appropriate peer reviewer for your site? Maybe you should ask them, or even invite them to the site. I'm sure they'd be delighted to have new material to work with. Isn't that just good practice?

E.g. if you find a cursus and you see that EH are conducting a national study of cursuses, you let the author/researcher know, or the curator does. Simples.

You may even get some of your site excavated for free in the case of e.g. Palaeolithic material