2nd June 2006, 09:31 AM
Was going to reply more to this thread but work got in the way (how inconsiderate of developers to want site meetings and costings).
In all of the SMA (SMS) projects that I have been involved in the initial strip has been treated and costed like an evaluation. Basically we produce a TST plan and do limited digging to characterise the archaeology (like a trenching eval) then a quick plan and a c.1 page 'report', a site meeting with client and monitor, agree NEW costings and aims etc (pos a new WSI) and into Excavation. As I said previousley this does work well but you have to be on the ball and so far has taken out the majority of the risk when costing the excavation up. The client has the advantage of a greater turn around and in cases blank areas freed up to start work on. I dont see that this is in any way counter to PPG 16 as the site is still evaluated - just with 1 big trench. The preservation in situ issue is a tricky one which fortunately we havent had to deal with yet but on rural sites (where SMA is best used) occurs that rarely that to my mind it is a good balance of risk.
In all of the SMA (SMS) projects that I have been involved in the initial strip has been treated and costed like an evaluation. Basically we produce a TST plan and do limited digging to characterise the archaeology (like a trenching eval) then a quick plan and a c.1 page 'report', a site meeting with client and monitor, agree NEW costings and aims etc (pos a new WSI) and into Excavation. As I said previousley this does work well but you have to be on the ball and so far has taken out the majority of the risk when costing the excavation up. The client has the advantage of a greater turn around and in cases blank areas freed up to start work on. I dont see that this is in any way counter to PPG 16 as the site is still evaluated - just with 1 big trench. The preservation in situ issue is a tricky one which fortunately we havent had to deal with yet but on rural sites (where SMA is best used) occurs that rarely that to my mind it is a good balance of risk.