16th May 2011, 01:22 PM
Dino,
you get barrow ditches dug in random joined (and not) up bits in East Yorks...........but not really evidence for work gangs (and I think your aware of this).
Ground penetrating radar isn't up to the job in my opinion...........but all my info is a few years out of date. What you want is SQUID gradiometry.
PP,
whether PPS5 isn't about rescue or not, rescue archaeology is. But I suspect your focusing on one aspect of it and missing the spirit of it. Commercial archaeology is and always will be rescue archaeology. That is recording (and understanding - i don't see the difference) the remains that are going to be destroyed by a development.
Understanding is a three edged sword. And in archaeology is a mythical holy grail, when you delve down to the nitty gritty details so little is understood on a basic level. ANY excavated remains cannot be fully understood until someone builds a time machine.
For instance take the case of the cursus. You wouldn't be any closer to understanding what it was for or who was using by 100% excavating the ditches. The stuff in the ditches are more likely to originate from eroded material from any banks - i.e. be from before (and some from during) its construction and from silting up of the ditches after they are no longer maintained (i.e. from after the monument has fallen out of use).
Unless of course the natural silting up of the ditches was part of its use (and how could you ever tell without using circular logic). Thus the few sherds of pottery, flint flakes, charred grains or hazelnut shells and/or the odd fragments of human bone etc collected from your 100% excavation wouldn't enable an understanding of the monument. Besides, you'd get a similar assemblage of material form a 50% excavation (unless your really unlucky).
you get barrow ditches dug in random joined (and not) up bits in East Yorks...........but not really evidence for work gangs (and I think your aware of this).
Ground penetrating radar isn't up to the job in my opinion...........but all my info is a few years out of date. What you want is SQUID gradiometry.
PP,
whether PPS5 isn't about rescue or not, rescue archaeology is. But I suspect your focusing on one aspect of it and missing the spirit of it. Commercial archaeology is and always will be rescue archaeology. That is recording (and understanding - i don't see the difference) the remains that are going to be destroyed by a development.
Understanding is a three edged sword. And in archaeology is a mythical holy grail, when you delve down to the nitty gritty details so little is understood on a basic level. ANY excavated remains cannot be fully understood until someone builds a time machine.
For instance take the case of the cursus. You wouldn't be any closer to understanding what it was for or who was using by 100% excavating the ditches. The stuff in the ditches are more likely to originate from eroded material from any banks - i.e. be from before (and some from during) its construction and from silting up of the ditches after they are no longer maintained (i.e. from after the monument has fallen out of use).
Unless of course the natural silting up of the ditches was part of its use (and how could you ever tell without using circular logic). Thus the few sherds of pottery, flint flakes, charred grains or hazelnut shells and/or the odd fragments of human bone etc collected from your 100% excavation wouldn't enable an understanding of the monument. Besides, you'd get a similar assemblage of material form a 50% excavation (unless your really unlucky).