4th February 2007, 10:00 PM
Troll - great question this one - congratulations.
I would certainly agree with Dr Peter that this type of site should have been located by the EIA if it were a road / runway / pipeline etc. If road or pipeline it should have been avoided through redesign at this stage, perhaps not possible for runway although pres. in situ might be possible through burial after consideration of the topography and the cut/fill balance.
With a pipeline it would still be possible to avoid the monument through a minor rerouting during construction, especially if an archaeologist had been working with the advance fencing crews and picked it up early on. This is not usually possible with a road as any route amendments could have major affects on horizontal and vertical alignment.
I like your concern re. [i]For example, if I was a project manager of a commercial unit and tendered on the basis of say, four diggers/one supervisor and completion in four weeks-how would you as curator/consultant react/respond?[/i] as it throws up an interesting issue. As a consultant I would fall about laughing and throw the tender response in the no chance saloon pile - it would be totally irresponsible of me to advise a client to appoint a contractor at a price that clearly cannot achieve the desired result. The client would be left in the position of having to either pay the contractor loads of additional money, or get rid of them and get another contractor in - either way not satisfactory and would not reflect well on my skills as a consultant.
However the more interesting part of the question is how curators would respond. I have had several instances where curators have asked to see details of the size of proposed dig team and duration of the fieldwork, and where I have advised them that this is none of their business - as long as the work is carried out in line with the agreed WSI it is nothing to do with the curator how long this takes or how many people are required. It may be OK to provide names and CVs of senior staff to demonstrate that they are suitable, but again this ought to be seen as compliance with the WSI. Whether or not the proposed team and duration of works is adequate is my call, and will be taken into account in my advice to clients on which contractor to appoint. I would always back my judgement on this issue against that of curators, especially those who I know to have limited field experience. This stance has led to a number of arguments with curators, but I am still not convinced that they have any role in determining the size of the field team of the duration of fieldwork. The example we are using here is an easy one and virtually all archaeologists will spot that the proposed team was wholly inadequate, but most examples would not be so clear-cut.
Troll - I will put my contractors hat on and price up this job for you when I have a spare half-hour.
Beamo
I would certainly agree with Dr Peter that this type of site should have been located by the EIA if it were a road / runway / pipeline etc. If road or pipeline it should have been avoided through redesign at this stage, perhaps not possible for runway although pres. in situ might be possible through burial after consideration of the topography and the cut/fill balance.
With a pipeline it would still be possible to avoid the monument through a minor rerouting during construction, especially if an archaeologist had been working with the advance fencing crews and picked it up early on. This is not usually possible with a road as any route amendments could have major affects on horizontal and vertical alignment.
I like your concern re. [i]For example, if I was a project manager of a commercial unit and tendered on the basis of say, four diggers/one supervisor and completion in four weeks-how would you as curator/consultant react/respond?[/i] as it throws up an interesting issue. As a consultant I would fall about laughing and throw the tender response in the no chance saloon pile - it would be totally irresponsible of me to advise a client to appoint a contractor at a price that clearly cannot achieve the desired result. The client would be left in the position of having to either pay the contractor loads of additional money, or get rid of them and get another contractor in - either way not satisfactory and would not reflect well on my skills as a consultant.
However the more interesting part of the question is how curators would respond. I have had several instances where curators have asked to see details of the size of proposed dig team and duration of the fieldwork, and where I have advised them that this is none of their business - as long as the work is carried out in line with the agreed WSI it is nothing to do with the curator how long this takes or how many people are required. It may be OK to provide names and CVs of senior staff to demonstrate that they are suitable, but again this ought to be seen as compliance with the WSI. Whether or not the proposed team and duration of works is adequate is my call, and will be taken into account in my advice to clients on which contractor to appoint. I would always back my judgement on this issue against that of curators, especially those who I know to have limited field experience. This stance has led to a number of arguments with curators, but I am still not convinced that they have any role in determining the size of the field team of the duration of fieldwork. The example we are using here is an easy one and virtually all archaeologists will spot that the proposed team was wholly inadequate, but most examples would not be so clear-cut.
Troll - I will put my contractors hat on and price up this job for you when I have a spare half-hour.
Beamo