Metallic Finds Rates on excavations

[In the Pit]

fine, but;

i dont think it is just dectorists in line for a mud splattering......i anticipate evidence(at least circumstantial) that there unexpectedly low rates of small metalic finds from excavations, [especialy context '(100)/Topsoil']
and also;
this highlights a wider issue with lax approaches to 'ploughzone' archaeology in general....

Agree entirely. To be fair to them, EH have recognised this - NHPP 4G2 is putting funds into looking at ploughzone stuff. I know of one later prehistoric site where ploughing removed all traces of features in the 4 years between eval and excavation. No doubt there was still useful data to be gleaned from that site, but how would you go about it? Sieving every inch of ploughsoil obviously isn't practical. Intensive fieldwalking & detector survey would have yielded more data than excavation, but Catch-22 is that, for that sort of case, how d'you know there ain't any features left before you strip it?!...

...*Scratches head, reaches for more coffee*