26th August 2013, 08:46 PM
There's areas we know are sterile because we sterilised them (a la Kevin's post), and all the rest where we'd have to gamble because we cannot see through the overburden! (Damned kryptonite in the local soil...) Sure, there are lots of "negative" evals done, but they fill in the map for us. Remember the good old days, when the map of Roman villas bore a curious correlation to the map of UK road-building?
And woe betide the DC officer who waives the need for an eval because "we know there's nothing around here", only to have to halt a development for a rescue dig! I'd rather have stacks of evals with no result than miss out on sites because nobody bothered to look before the big yellow trowel arrived. As for "fewer, but done better", what is the current problem with enforcing good standards? If digs are slack now, doing less of them won't drive up standards! The two issues are unrelated...
What we all really want is more, AND done better! Especially when Development archaeology is the only part of the sector with any legislation to back it up in these days of austerity.
And woe betide the DC officer who waives the need for an eval because "we know there's nothing around here", only to have to halt a development for a rescue dig! I'd rather have stacks of evals with no result than miss out on sites because nobody bothered to look before the big yellow trowel arrived. As for "fewer, but done better", what is the current problem with enforcing good standards? If digs are slack now, doing less of them won't drive up standards! The two issues are unrelated...
What we all really want is more, AND done better! Especially when Development archaeology is the only part of the sector with any legislation to back it up in these days of austerity.