25th March 2014, 03:00 PM
Quote:An anonymous commentor calling himself Steve joined the debate and made a claim that professional archaeologists on a dig often use a mechanical digger called a 360 to scrape and remove the topsoil (up to 50cm) and put it on a spoil heap. He says this is done to allow archaeologists to get to the items they want to document and is the cause of not enough funding or a tight time scale. Now obviously if there is any truth in these comments it means that metal detectorists who find and record items from the topsoil are actually helping the archaeological record instead of hindering it.
What I was wondering is if this is true or not? Is mechanical excavation a used technique?
Was the question.
unless nobody else can see that? in which case, that is very very weird!
but then.... the forum is playing up a bit. and I need some time to fix some issues. like this. ( moderated posts ( even mine) and non uploading images ) sigh... never ends...
So I can see the top post... can you?