HS2 high-speed - archaeologists jamboree?

[Jack]

To archaeologists, the HS2 high-speed rail scheme is "one huge trench across the country", an unprecedented 350-mile bonanza that promises to open up England's ancient backbone and shoulders for meticulous study in a way never before possible..............<snip>

Or an opportunity to destroy a vast swathe of that troublesome archaeology............depends on the mitigation strategy and/or expertese of those doing the consultancy and/or fieldwork...............

Beware of strategies like oh if nothing shows up in the DBA or geophysics there's nothing their...............or the we'll strip a 5m wide corridor, if there is nothing in there then there'll be nowt in the rest of the corridor!
These things destroy archaeology as a necessity, it is impractical and prohibitively to strip map and record the full impact footprint.