PPS5 PARIs

[Steven]

Preservation is situ is an annoying, but very important principle. It is better for the client as a minor alteration to the plans,( i.e. moving the footprint to avoid stuff) can work out cheaper. In the commercial world, its often better for the archaeology as it isn't subject to a rush rescue excavation.

Furthermore, as someone stated somewhere, archaeology is a limited resource, once its excavated its gone, destroyed, all context removed.
As scientific techniques, theories and technologies are getting more advanced every year it is important not to destroy all the evidence before better techniques can be used to extract more information.

Just look at the 'robbing' of barrow mounds when compared to modern techniques. If only they'd kept the rest of the bones and not just the skulls.

If we don't preserve in situ, future archaeologists will look back at us in disgust.

Hi Jack
I sympathise somewhat with your view on this but I'm afraid PARIS is a much more complex issue that it seems. As I said in my earlier post a change of use on a site can bring a host of permitted developments that can have an equal impact on the archaeology as the original development. This means that simply moving the footprint is not PARIS as it does not necessarily preserve archaeology from the impact of the development it may just allow the archaeology to be destroyed piecemeal by subsequent developments not requiring planning permission (new drainage for example doesn't need planning permission). Of course this depends on the nature of the development so in certain circumstances PARIS can be achieved, but there are many, many factors which make PARIS exceptionally difficult in many cases.
Compression of deposits by piles or rafts, de-watering of deposits, sudden on-site "unforeseen" requirements to dig slightly deeper, Mending/re-routing of services years after the development, digging of new drainage after the development, unforeseen changes in the depth of archaeology across the site and many more.
All of these factors and many more have to be taken account of before PARIS can actually be achieved.
I think future archaeologists will understand that it was not "us" that decided to develop sites, it was elected members of LPAs. They may very well understand that there is a lot of archaeology out there and that development only impacts on a tiny percentage of sites. I think that future archaeologists will be much more unhappy if sites supposedly preserved in-situ are lost because the PARIS strategy was flawed and so all remains were removed without any record.