26th February 2007, 02:56 PM
Mr Unit,
A lot of your argument appears to be that any development that doesn't include trial trenching and/or an excavation is depriving field archaeologists of work. You also appear to believe that DBAs are only useful as a preliminary to trenching.
In the first place, the purpose of archaeological work in the planning process is not to provide work for archaeologists - it is to show whether the site has archaeological potential and put in place an appropriate mitigation strategy. If you base your advice to your client even partly on the desire to create fieldwork opportunities, that would be serious professional malpractice and (if you advised them that way in the expectation of getting the work yourself) possibly criminal fraud.
In the second place, the DBA (or any other archaeological operation) needs to be approached objectively and without preconceptions as to its outcome. If I knew that the archaeologist carrying out a DBA had decided in advance that they were going to recommend trial trenching whatever they found in the DBA, I would not trust that person's conclusions.
There is a strong suspicion amongst many clients that archaeologists are prone to lining their own pockets, or pursuing their own research agendas, by insisting on making the developer pay for work that is not really necessary in the circumstances of that development. Your attitude seems to confirm that suspicion and contributes to a bad name that we all have to struggle against.
There are many DBAs that demonstrate no need for fieldwork, for instance when the site is shown to have been heavily disturbed in a way that would have destroyed any archaeology (e.g. by opencast mining). If there are undisturbed areas that do contain archaeology, the DBA can provide an opportunity to redesign the development so that it only disturbs previously damaged areas and preserves the intact archaeological area.
Finally, if you really do need to know about the depth of disturbance in a former quarry, you can bet your bottom dollar that the developer will be commissioning a geotechnical ground investigation and you can get the information much better from that than from trial trenching (which would rarely be able to reach deep enough).
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
A lot of your argument appears to be that any development that doesn't include trial trenching and/or an excavation is depriving field archaeologists of work. You also appear to believe that DBAs are only useful as a preliminary to trenching.
In the first place, the purpose of archaeological work in the planning process is not to provide work for archaeologists - it is to show whether the site has archaeological potential and put in place an appropriate mitigation strategy. If you base your advice to your client even partly on the desire to create fieldwork opportunities, that would be serious professional malpractice and (if you advised them that way in the expectation of getting the work yourself) possibly criminal fraud.
In the second place, the DBA (or any other archaeological operation) needs to be approached objectively and without preconceptions as to its outcome. If I knew that the archaeologist carrying out a DBA had decided in advance that they were going to recommend trial trenching whatever they found in the DBA, I would not trust that person's conclusions.
There is a strong suspicion amongst many clients that archaeologists are prone to lining their own pockets, or pursuing their own research agendas, by insisting on making the developer pay for work that is not really necessary in the circumstances of that development. Your attitude seems to confirm that suspicion and contributes to a bad name that we all have to struggle against.
There are many DBAs that demonstrate no need for fieldwork, for instance when the site is shown to have been heavily disturbed in a way that would have destroyed any archaeology (e.g. by opencast mining). If there are undisturbed areas that do contain archaeology, the DBA can provide an opportunity to redesign the development so that it only disturbs previously damaged areas and preserves the intact archaeological area.
Finally, if you really do need to know about the depth of disturbance in a former quarry, you can bet your bottom dollar that the developer will be commissioning a geotechnical ground investigation and you can get the information much better from that than from trial trenching (which would rarely be able to reach deep enough).
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished