8th September 2008, 12:54 PM
I never noticed this one before - am I too late?
Putting my professional Northerner hat on...
I have noticed a tendancy to play-down the potential of sites in many cases in North-west at least. This seems partially a result of the assumption that there is probably nothing to find so why ask for anything more extensive than a watching brief, and then, funnily enough, nothing is found. Part of the problem is that certain periods (the Iron Age, the Early Medieval in particular) are virtually invisible, and the less people try to look the less they find. This is then compounded by people who aren't used to the area seemingly confusing the diference between these types of sites producing very little in the way of obvious remains and them not existing at all (this isn't just a way at sniping at Southerners!)
The whole thing then falls into a vicious circle - we little idea know what to look for in terms of certain sites, so we aren't even sure when we've spotted them. Hence recommending only a WB when an evaluation might be more effective. This also leads to ludicrous situations where watching briefs might be carried out for weeks across say an entire pipeline of several kilometers, when evaluation of targetted areas would be more useful and cheaper.
The difference between what might turn up is also problematic from the point of view of what is important - a single ditch containing a few scraps of Iron Age pottery or any other finds would be regionally important in most of the North-West, I'm not sure it would cause the same level of interest in other parts of the coutry!
Putting my professional Northerner hat on...
I have noticed a tendancy to play-down the potential of sites in many cases in North-west at least. This seems partially a result of the assumption that there is probably nothing to find so why ask for anything more extensive than a watching brief, and then, funnily enough, nothing is found. Part of the problem is that certain periods (the Iron Age, the Early Medieval in particular) are virtually invisible, and the less people try to look the less they find. This is then compounded by people who aren't used to the area seemingly confusing the diference between these types of sites producing very little in the way of obvious remains and them not existing at all (this isn't just a way at sniping at Southerners!)
The whole thing then falls into a vicious circle - we little idea know what to look for in terms of certain sites, so we aren't even sure when we've spotted them. Hence recommending only a WB when an evaluation might be more effective. This also leads to ludicrous situations where watching briefs might be carried out for weeks across say an entire pipeline of several kilometers, when evaluation of targetted areas would be more useful and cheaper.
The difference between what might turn up is also problematic from the point of view of what is important - a single ditch containing a few scraps of Iron Age pottery or any other finds would be regionally important in most of the North-West, I'm not sure it would cause the same level of interest in other parts of the coutry!