21st May 2007, 02:30 PM
I voted 'a bit of both'.
For very extensive, plough-truncated rural sites, single context planning (as opposed to recording) is basically silly - very wasteful of both time and materials, without any real gain in precision or interpretative power.
On the other hand, multi-context planning just wouldn't work in deeply stratified urban sites.
There are intermediate sites, where you get an element of 'positive' stratigraphy but not deep, complex stratigraphy. Those are the ones where it is probably harder to decide which approach to adopt.
As far as I was aware, everyone in the country used single-context recording, and anyone recording a cut and fill as a single context is just poorly trained/supervised.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
For very extensive, plough-truncated rural sites, single context planning (as opposed to recording) is basically silly - very wasteful of both time and materials, without any real gain in precision or interpretative power.
On the other hand, multi-context planning just wouldn't work in deeply stratified urban sites.
There are intermediate sites, where you get an element of 'positive' stratigraphy but not deep, complex stratigraphy. Those are the ones where it is probably harder to decide which approach to adopt.
As far as I was aware, everyone in the country used single-context recording, and anyone recording a cut and fill as a single context is just poorly trained/supervised.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished