11th July 2008, 03:24 PM
Posted by ShadowJack:
People's perception of higher standards before PPG16 is mainly because there was more research excavation than 'rescue' work then. Rescue work was done on a shoestring, often to very low standards, and often was not done at all. Modern PPG16 work is probably 95% of the total workload. It is probably not done to quite the standard of a research excavation, but it is much closer to that standard than to the standards applied on a lot of pre-PPG16 rescue excavations. I will give you a few examples in a moment, but I have a general point to make first.
Competitive tendering really came out of PPG16, and was a corollorary of developer funding, both for evaluation before the planning application is determined (which rarely if ever happened before) and for the mitigation excavations under planning conditions after determination.
As a result, the curator does not have to find a budget for the fieldwork and then for the post-ex, as they did before the advent of developer funding. That means that they are far more likely to impose archaeological requirements, both before and after determination, and the scale of work done is usually much larger.
The standard of work done is often much better as well. I can remember several jobs I worked on where only the fieldwork was funded, and then the scope of work was determined purely by budget with no consideration of the needs of the site. There was no provision at all after the day the site closed. For example, if soil samples were collected at all, they might be left out in an open yard for several years before processing, because there was no indoor storage facility and no funding for the post-ex. That is an example (from Scotland) of the 'higher standards' that supposedly prevailed before developer funding.
On another site (in England), a major development in a historic town centre that effectively removed a well-preserved Roman vicus and early Medieval burgage plots was investigated through a 'watching brief' that consisted of a man watching from the street outside, through gaps in the site boundary hoardings.
Some years ago I wrote up a post-PPG16 excavation of a settlement enclosure for publication, and in doing so I did quite a bit of research on previous excavations on similar sites in the region.
Although our site was not very well-preserved, the whole affected area had been excavated very thoroughly, there had been a proper post-ex assessment, and all the recommended work had been implemented in reasonably good time.
For the previous excavations, all of which were in advance of development but before PPG16, the need for public funding meant that only the very best sites had been selected for archaeological investigation; other known sites, better than the one we dealt with, had been destroyed without excavation.
On the sites that had been investigated, the excavations had all been 'sampling' exersises. The better ones had excavated the entrance, another enclosure ditch/bank section and a proportion of the interior (perhaps up to 20%).
Under PPG16, many of these sites would have been protected, and all of those that were developed would certainly have been subject to 100% excavation of the affected area.
True, the work would be subject to competitive tendering, and each tenderer would try to keep costs down to win the job. However, the scope of work and standards to be applied that they would be tendering for would be pre-determined by someone else without a financial stake in keeping it small, and the curator could monitor the quality of work without fear of having to pay out of his own (tiny) budget for the cost of any standard he wanted to impose.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
Quote:quote:As to the question of monopoly and whether this is a good or bad for the profession.....does anyone out there really think the rise of competative tendering was a good thing for the archaeology we investigate? If you need to cut tenders to the bone to win contracts, something has to give if you end up biting off more than you can chew.Actually, yes I do think it was good for the archaeology, quite strongly, and I will tell you why.
People's perception of higher standards before PPG16 is mainly because there was more research excavation than 'rescue' work then. Rescue work was done on a shoestring, often to very low standards, and often was not done at all. Modern PPG16 work is probably 95% of the total workload. It is probably not done to quite the standard of a research excavation, but it is much closer to that standard than to the standards applied on a lot of pre-PPG16 rescue excavations. I will give you a few examples in a moment, but I have a general point to make first.
Competitive tendering really came out of PPG16, and was a corollorary of developer funding, both for evaluation before the planning application is determined (which rarely if ever happened before) and for the mitigation excavations under planning conditions after determination.
As a result, the curator does not have to find a budget for the fieldwork and then for the post-ex, as they did before the advent of developer funding. That means that they are far more likely to impose archaeological requirements, both before and after determination, and the scale of work done is usually much larger.
The standard of work done is often much better as well. I can remember several jobs I worked on where only the fieldwork was funded, and then the scope of work was determined purely by budget with no consideration of the needs of the site. There was no provision at all after the day the site closed. For example, if soil samples were collected at all, they might be left out in an open yard for several years before processing, because there was no indoor storage facility and no funding for the post-ex. That is an example (from Scotland) of the 'higher standards' that supposedly prevailed before developer funding.
On another site (in England), a major development in a historic town centre that effectively removed a well-preserved Roman vicus and early Medieval burgage plots was investigated through a 'watching brief' that consisted of a man watching from the street outside, through gaps in the site boundary hoardings.
Some years ago I wrote up a post-PPG16 excavation of a settlement enclosure for publication, and in doing so I did quite a bit of research on previous excavations on similar sites in the region.
Although our site was not very well-preserved, the whole affected area had been excavated very thoroughly, there had been a proper post-ex assessment, and all the recommended work had been implemented in reasonably good time.
For the previous excavations, all of which were in advance of development but before PPG16, the need for public funding meant that only the very best sites had been selected for archaeological investigation; other known sites, better than the one we dealt with, had been destroyed without excavation.
On the sites that had been investigated, the excavations had all been 'sampling' exersises. The better ones had excavated the entrance, another enclosure ditch/bank section and a proportion of the interior (perhaps up to 20%).
Under PPG16, many of these sites would have been protected, and all of those that were developed would certainly have been subject to 100% excavation of the affected area.
True, the work would be subject to competitive tendering, and each tenderer would try to keep costs down to win the job. However, the scope of work and standards to be applied that they would be tendering for would be pre-determined by someone else without a financial stake in keeping it small, and the curator could monitor the quality of work without fear of having to pay out of his own (tiny) budget for the cost of any standard he wanted to impose.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished