17th September 2008, 09:59 AM
Your comments re burghs surely have a lot to with the nature of the settlements now on those sites? There aren't a huge amount of opportunities to investigate these towns archaeologically, and the type of developer who does those sites is often small. There should be research frameworks and strategies in place at a local and regional level to address the issue you raised, but its really down to the balance between the presumption of preservation in situ meaning we don't get to dig the whole site (which we would all like), but also meaning we do get to dig what will be destroyed. In the case of your ditch, you recorded what was destroyed by the service trench, the rest of the ditch there is preserved in situ. The probable line is now the very probable line, and you hopefully have some dating from the upper infilling. That is an advance. Obviously digging a slot through the whole ditch would be 'better', but it destroys the resource and is the last resort. You can argue for it if the development were to take out 1/3 say of the ditch, but a 'crappy small' service trench doesn't warrant that.
I've been in similar situations where we were only allowed to excavate the eastern end of a church, leaving us in the position of not having a full understanding of the evolution of the church, but it was a SAM and the western part was not going to be trashed. We did a professional job and the records can be tied together in the future. On another site we only dug the pile-caps, and the rest of the site was preserved, leaving us with a fragmented view of the site, but its the price we pay. In the same way as doing 6 month watching briefs on empty pipelines is the price we pay. We can't always have it our way, unfortunately. It is really frustrating but I think we're lucky to get to do anything sometimes.
Generally where I work there is a huge commitment to research from the largest units, and that is enforced by the curators, as well as many consultants being on side. If you show a need to bring in other sites or analyse material above and beyond the norm then clients will come round if that is what happens normally. Maybe that is the type of site I have worked on, and it maybe isn't the case for really small developers, but it is my experience. I work in an area (London), where there is a research framework, a research strategy is being written as we speak, and world class academic research is done on sites. Its done by pushing up standards so (nearly) all the units now have to do a proper job here. Hopefully other areas will follow. To me its a lot about attitude, and if you have the frameworks saying research is important, you can successfully argue for proper dissemination of the results as being part of the condition.
What doesn't work as well though is the area of finds and enviro research, as they need a wider overview in many cases. There are problems with getting a city wide analytical programme of eg the Roman animal bone, or medieval environment. But by tapping into external funding sources projects doing this type of work does happen.
Overview projects are a problem but I feel as a professional 'commmercial' archaeologist my job is to excavate the site impeccably, and to produce an archive which can be used in the future by researchers, but also to assess and analyse the site results to a certain level so that the real specialists in any area or discipline can access the data easily and take on the baton of research to the wider and higher level. No commercial site will fund endless research, but it will fund the research necessary to set out the site at a level where it is accessible for others to use.
I've been in similar situations where we were only allowed to excavate the eastern end of a church, leaving us in the position of not having a full understanding of the evolution of the church, but it was a SAM and the western part was not going to be trashed. We did a professional job and the records can be tied together in the future. On another site we only dug the pile-caps, and the rest of the site was preserved, leaving us with a fragmented view of the site, but its the price we pay. In the same way as doing 6 month watching briefs on empty pipelines is the price we pay. We can't always have it our way, unfortunately. It is really frustrating but I think we're lucky to get to do anything sometimes.
Generally where I work there is a huge commitment to research from the largest units, and that is enforced by the curators, as well as many consultants being on side. If you show a need to bring in other sites or analyse material above and beyond the norm then clients will come round if that is what happens normally. Maybe that is the type of site I have worked on, and it maybe isn't the case for really small developers, but it is my experience. I work in an area (London), where there is a research framework, a research strategy is being written as we speak, and world class academic research is done on sites. Its done by pushing up standards so (nearly) all the units now have to do a proper job here. Hopefully other areas will follow. To me its a lot about attitude, and if you have the frameworks saying research is important, you can successfully argue for proper dissemination of the results as being part of the condition.
What doesn't work as well though is the area of finds and enviro research, as they need a wider overview in many cases. There are problems with getting a city wide analytical programme of eg the Roman animal bone, or medieval environment. But by tapping into external funding sources projects doing this type of work does happen.
Overview projects are a problem but I feel as a professional 'commmercial' archaeologist my job is to excavate the site impeccably, and to produce an archive which can be used in the future by researchers, but also to assess and analyse the site results to a certain level so that the real specialists in any area or discipline can access the data easily and take on the baton of research to the wider and higher level. No commercial site will fund endless research, but it will fund the research necessary to set out the site at a level where it is accessible for others to use.