pdurdin Wrote:1. If there are known sites which will be damaged/destroyed/affected, then on what scale and how can that be mitigated (or avoided)?
2. If there are unknown sites, aren't these of little value until they're excavated/researched anyway?
There may be economic or ecological reasons to oppose it, but if point 1 is correctly managed...................<snip> .
That is always the rub. Current archaeological excavation always destroys some information, we just don't have the technology to record everything that might be vitally important to future researchers.
Any archaeologist of a certain level of experience should realise that 'known' archaeology is a tiny fragment of what actually exists just beneath the topsoil and/or subsoils, hillwash etc etc.
Some consultants, and pretty much all engineers still consider archaeology exists only in small defined sites, with large areas of blank in between.
Its often difficult to justify anything other than a watching brief on areas where the presence of archaeological remains cannot be demonstrated.
Watching brief methodologies invariably mean large amounts of archaeological features are missed, either through some remains being difficult to spot in the short time between stripping and tracking or trench excavation, the (sometimes) inexperience of the person doing the watching, pressure to release areas from managers or the client, dirty tactics by the engineers or ground crews the list goes on. You just have to look at publications of some linear projects, especially by overlying the impact footprint over the 'excavation' areas and 'watching brief' areas to see all those archaeological features magically stopping at the start of the watching brief areas.
A shocking but seemingly unstoppable current working methodology involves stripping a 5-10m wide strip under archaeological conditions along the length of the corridor. If you don't find any archaeology within that strip, the rest of the topsoil within the 20m, 30m etc wide impact footprint gets buldozed off, destroying any trace of the archaeology just outside the initial strip.
Not very destructive in a small area..............but when you expand that to tens of kilometers just think of the total area of archaeological landscapes that are destroyed.
The issues are in the day to day details.............
Jon blogs groaned, his back ached, the constant noise of the machines hurt his weary brain.
He smiled falsely at the workmen beside him latest crude jibe.
Jon glanced back towards the the 360 as it mercilessly stripped the countryside of topsoil wincing at the uneven surface and the myriad of patches of obscuring topsoil left behind.
He'd tried to ask the driver to go slower to make a cleaner surface, but after a phonecall to his boss about how 'the smelly hippy' had tried to tell him to go slower Jon had received a phone call from the office telling him in no uncertain terms to stop messing with the methodology.
Jon felt out-numbered, alone and out on a limb, he'd only been given this job on the pipeline as an emergency because he had a car and had directed machines before.............this was completely different. He felt lost, no one listened.
Glancing back at the messy surface he spotted a patch of charcoal. Unconsciously he glanced towards the ground crew as he brandished his trowel and walked towards it.
The workmen sniggered to one another 'what have you found, mate? Stonehenge? You should get timeteam in'
Jon flinched.....he was wishing the blob of charcoal was just a patch of topsoil....he dreaded going up against the workmen who were only interested in getting the pipe in as fast as possible, but even more he dreaded stopping the job for something unimportant and potentially losing his job, or at least losing the lucrative overtime.
He half-heartedly poked at the charcoal patch as the pipe-trench excavator edged closer and closer. He wasn't sure what the blob was...there wasn't time to dig a proper section across it.
Probably nothing he told himself as he was shooed out of the way by the workmen.
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Save what you can!
