7th December 2005, 03:30 PM
Well, not quite so cheerful now!
Tendering builders will indeed price against a Bill of Quantities, prepared by the design team, who would be insane, not to say negligent, not to include a contingency sum. Any item, i.e. extra work or materials, instructed while on site and not listed in the contract documents is an extra. It's rather difficult to see how this procedure can be translated into archaeology, which it seems to me is what the contract arch system attempts to do. Broadly speaking an open ended or otherwise unfair contract is enforcable (doesn't exost) in English law. It would clearly be unfair to require a contractor to properly excavate an unexpected chariot burial without paying the extra for it! You would have to pay your garage to repair your track rod or any other unforseen fault.
It seems to me that many of the problems with contract archaeology stem at least in part from the impracticality of having to price against the unknown.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.

Tendering builders will indeed price against a Bill of Quantities, prepared by the design team, who would be insane, not to say negligent, not to include a contingency sum. Any item, i.e. extra work or materials, instructed while on site and not listed in the contract documents is an extra. It's rather difficult to see how this procedure can be translated into archaeology, which it seems to me is what the contract arch system attempts to do. Broadly speaking an open ended or otherwise unfair contract is enforcable (doesn't exost) in English law. It would clearly be unfair to require a contractor to properly excavate an unexpected chariot burial without paying the extra for it! You would have to pay your garage to repair your track rod or any other unforseen fault.
It seems to me that many of the problems with contract archaeology stem at least in part from the impracticality of having to price against the unknown.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.