20th June 2006, 05:45 PM
Quote:quote:and I hope that this is a rare and unusual occurrence.
Not in my experience. Machining by the developer is usually substandard, whether under archaeological supervision or not. It should be made very clear by the consultant, curator and contractor, that if it is not done well then it will have to be done by hand, with all the extra costs that would entail. Come to think of it most sites should be cleaned by hand anyway. A charitable explanation here may be that none of these parties had the balls to tell the developer to re-do it. But that doesn't account for a refusal to let the archs hand clean it. Looks like a conscious policy to minimize the archaeology found.