22nd June 2009, 07:27 PM
Do you mean as in an all-day presence on a site every day? Or just a project that went on for ages? I know of several that have lasted 5+ months every day watching pile arisings. I did a few weeks on one of them and then escaped luckily. Found nothing.
Same site had 6+ months of three people watching a secant trench, but used it to further evaluate the site. Was all machine dug though, and the observations limited to a very quick 'jump in and measure'.
Know of several cable trenches that had nothing but other pipes and cables, one ran for nearly a year until someone screwed up and went deeper to avoid some existing cables and went through a post-med burial ground. Bingo! twenty odd skulls, a rake of assorted long bones and a hasty cab ride back to HQ with 5 bin bags chock full of Death.
but sometimes WBs aren't about finding something, they're about not finding something, or avoiding it. Unfortunately if you can't trust contractors not to just dig a bloody big hole and take out half a SAM then you need a WB with a bored archaeologist on site. Come up with a better solution for all our sakes.
On the other hand I've got some really useful data out of apparently pointless WBs, admittedly in urban strat situations: confirming the course of roads or boundary ditches, or their absence. Other WBs have found loads and loads of really important features, finds, the lot, and ended up as published papers. But they may have really been intermittent excavations. Each one on its merits.
Same site had 6+ months of three people watching a secant trench, but used it to further evaluate the site. Was all machine dug though, and the observations limited to a very quick 'jump in and measure'.
Know of several cable trenches that had nothing but other pipes and cables, one ran for nearly a year until someone screwed up and went deeper to avoid some existing cables and went through a post-med burial ground. Bingo! twenty odd skulls, a rake of assorted long bones and a hasty cab ride back to HQ with 5 bin bags chock full of Death.
but sometimes WBs aren't about finding something, they're about not finding something, or avoiding it. Unfortunately if you can't trust contractors not to just dig a bloody big hole and take out half a SAM then you need a WB with a bored archaeologist on site. Come up with a better solution for all our sakes.
On the other hand I've got some really useful data out of apparently pointless WBs, admittedly in urban strat situations: confirming the course of roads or boundary ditches, or their absence. Other WBs have found loads and loads of really important features, finds, the lot, and ended up as published papers. But they may have really been intermittent excavations. Each one on its merits.