17th November 2010, 08:22 PM
kevin wooldridge Wrote:Sorry Jack. I meant of course research and not excavation (and I suggested geophysical survey as a potential non-intrusive addition). I realise in muddling the words I totally confused my meaning. What I was trying to say was that the contractor (or the developer) shouldn't be allowed to get away with the excuse of 'I only want to pay for works directly associated with my 2m x 2m hole' if additional research could place that 'hole' in a greater 'whole'..... In the setting of a 'known' RB/IA settlement I would have thought that not too difficult without the need for making the trench bigger, destroying more than the minimum of the archaeological resource or spending any longer time 'onsite' than required for the immediate works. That was all. Apologies for my mistake ....
Sorry, not been joining in for a few days, been out doing some trial trenches in a small corner of one of those town-sized 'sites'. Have successfully failed to achieve any of the 'research objectives' for the holes, just raised a whole new set of questions which can't be resolved without digging the whole site (which would, of course, answer the original objectives too). The building that's going up won't impact directly in a big way on the archaeology, just shallow wall footings/services and the rest jacked up on pilings, so all I've achieved (and for the next few days) is to be able to say 'yes, you're going to punch some small round holes through whatever's down there' which frankly we knew anyway. All I can do is meticulously record the mysteries I have found. I've completely failed to find anything agreeing with the existing research and there's nowhere to go without a million-pound dig which ain't gonna happen and no county-mountie would be insane enough to suggest it....:face-stir:
Jack - you still having trouble writing that report then? - having seen your site plans I know the problem :0