3rd March 2008, 02:02 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Sparky
Hi Steven,
Not wanting to go off the thread and agreeing mostly with what you write, I am slightly concerned about how an archaeological evaluation can evaluate archaeological deposits without actually excavating them. Sondages don't really tell you much about pits or ditches, can be terribly small and fiddly and sometimes misleading on both urban and rural sites. Furthermore, a characterisation of the achaeology, such as dating material, is required for a decision on mitigation. Perhaps you din't quite mean what I thought you did.
A good example of a bad archaeological approach to the sympathies of piling was an outrageous excavation of the pile-holes...yes the holes...at a monastic site in Lincoln. Don't know what was going through the city archaeologist's head; the requirements of the council to develop cheaply, maybe...?
Who is 'Cornflake Man'?
Cheers
S
Hi Sparky
I'll start with your last question, first, Cornflake man is what people call an engineer who has given two papers at Preservation of Archaeological Remains In-Situ conferences 2 & 3, which concern the impact of foundations on archaeological deposits. Unfortunately I can't remember this chaps real name, sorry.
In terms of what I meant by evaluation strategy. Lets take an example, a trench in an urban site which the stratigraphy is natural with cut features, sealed by a cultural deposit also cut through by features, sealed by a further cultural deposit also cut through. In the evaluation you would sample excavate some of the cut features in the top layer (thereby dating etc them), perhaps take an enviro sample from the top layer Hopefully then you would know about the underlying layer from observations whilst excavating the cut features. So in order to assess these underlying layers/features you would either dig a sondage to sample underlying strat or find an appropriate feature which cuts all the way through to natural so giving you an idea of the charater of underlying archaeology. In almost all evals I like to see a deep hole somewhere in at least one trench to ensure all layers etc have been assessed.
I think that you assumed I meant no investigation of features within trenches didn't you, hopefully the above concurs with your basic strategy.
Unfortunately I have also had to deal with piling impact with a flexible strategy, if you want details you'll have to get Hosty to email me your email or something so we can talk off this forum and still preserve our secret identities :face-huh:.
Anna,
That's a fair point, but 25m deep piles tend to have a rather serious impact on waterlogged material both within the development area and on adjacent sites as they act like sumps. However, not dealing with the actual threatened site in order to preserve possible adjacent sites is not really a solution. There are ways of bunding a site after excavation to avoid water loss from surrounding areas.
Steven