20th September 2013, 01:15 PM
Dinosaur Wrote:Conversely, all those 'antiquarians' made at least some record, however slight, of vast amounts of archaeology which would have disappeared long since anyway courtesy of powered farm machinery - the vast majority of archaeological distribution plots (which, for instance, PM is based on) rely on those spots on a map for their baseline? Are you suggesting we ignore all the archaeology being swept away by modern development too?
Your opening sentence is a somewhat optimistic way of looking at it - some antiquarians made very good records (they were the ones I was referring to, the ones who really moved things forward), some made very average records, some made records that are complete nonsense with even worse interpretation, some made hardly any record at all, and some made a record but didn't publish it and it is only known about because someone found it in an archive. Comparing that to work done in advance of modern development is baffling (although entirely understandable in some cases).