10th September 2011, 06:04 PM
Marcus - what would be your view of a site where the strategy effectively involved re-design of the development and sacrificing c.5% (actually probably less) of the archaeology with only minimal excavation mainly restricted to the top of the archaeological sequence, and a follow-up watching brief, in order to preserve the remainder 'in situ' - a compromise devised between the consultant, client and county (although a little upsetting as the contractor watching beautiful stratigraphy being machined out, had to go and console myself checking the footing/piling plans to reassure myself that the damage wasn't as catastrophic as it looked). Any higher level of intervention would have (a) destroyed more of the archaeology, albeit with more paper record, and (b) potentially killed off a worthwhile educational development, PP's 'standard' of a 100% sample was certainly never going to happen, unfortunately