Have you used the ICE Conditions of Contract?

[Paul Belford]

Sorry about that...[:I] at least here the main subject of discussion is (more or less) archaeology!

[?]

[Paul Belford]

As I understand it, a CDM co-ordinator is only required on projects which last for more than 30 days or involve more than 500 person-days of work. So small evaluations, watching briefs, building recording jobs etc., if stand-alone from the main construction project, may not be required to comply with this aspect of the regulations.

Having said that, much of the CDM is common sense in terms of managing responsibilities for Health and Safety, so it is good practice to be thinking in that sort of mindset anyway.



Edited for grammer and speling.

[Unitof1]

quote:it is just up to the client to decide whether they think it is worthwhile.

I think that archaeologists should specifically identify the owner of the archaeology to consider whether it is worthwhile. Developer funded archaeology is undertaken because archaeology has identified that nationalism has a vestment of ownership on behalf of society in archaeology (not that society exists). I think that you should make a distinction in these muddy waters between clients who own the archaeology and those who don’t quite.

quote: is where the link between the construction industry and archaeology comes in - you have to pay for archaeological work under conditions of the planning permission.

Although the construction industry might go and arrange the structure of the permission they are funded, almost always, by an owner of the permission who has probably never laid a brick in their life but who is committed to the scheme and has to have control of the ground in which the archaeology is found. So I think that the archaeologist has to justify the archaeology in relation to the Requirement for the Scheme for the permission, not what type of concrete mix they are going to use. The archaeologist has to understand the now as well as the past and has to be involved in the cost benefit analysis. Although some understanding about how engineers build bridges is interesting (mainly because I can show them that almost all examples will fail and not for structural reasons!) archaeologists are involved in why they are building bridges and I don’t think that is to be found through a so called link to the construction industry.

The EIAs have made this blatantly obvious. The people who want the schemes quite rightly need to control that permission (outcomes, costs) as much as possible. As considerations of the reasons for the scheme archaeologists are employed and taken to public inquiries and used to show that the mitigation put in place is adequate. Apparently the construction industry has changed the archaeologists presence, through the ice contract, to consultant archaeologist is taken to public inquires.

Public inquires are adversarial courts and archaeologists are put in such places to explain the adequacies of the mitigation. As adversarial places they need adversaries because if there is no opposition, the scheme as presented does not need to be changed. Most public inquires are often little more than the presentation of the EIA in which the consultants will be at pains to point out that all the relevant statutory authorities have been consulted and presumably are in agreement with the permission from their point of view. It then does not help, if you’re an adversarial type of a person if the codes of conduct of the ifa make it difficult for an archaeologist to cast doubt on another member and when the ice contract makes it appear that archaeologists recommend that archaeologist to leave that platform to consultants.

[BAJR Host]

archaeologist has to understand the now as well as the past and has to be involved in the cost benefit analysis

I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. interesting that archaeologists can have opposite views about the same ...

m'lud.. this is important archaeology
no m'lud its is very boring common stuff of no importance.

who would be right? surely subjective

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[drpeterwardle]

David said

"m'lud.. this is important archaeology
no m'lud its is very boring common stuff of no importance.

who would be right? surely subjective"

Get real David - In England there are a set of criteria and description of all monument classes to try and remove the subjectivity. It is a good system - hats off to EH for putting it togethar nearly 20 years ago.

The correct form of address to a planning inspector by the way is "Sir"!

Peter

[BAJR Host]

good system indeed ... but.. in that case, why have opposing archaeologists on groups saying this is important/not important... (I know it is more complicated than that.. but hey you get my drift)

Is Thornborough a Henge Complex or not... what is it's importance... why can people argue about it being preserved in a landscape... ? I always thought a planning inspector was called 'god'

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[gorilla]

SUBJECTIVE: Influenced by or based on personal belief or feelings, rather than based on facts.
OBJECTIVE: Not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings; based on real facts. It's an admirably objective and impartial report. Science is usually concerned only with objective facts that can be proved or disproved.
The difference between these two important ideas is the difference between fact and opinion. Facts are objective and probably true; however, if no clear facts exist about a topic, then a series of balanced opinions needs to be produced to allow the reader to make up his or her mind; opinions are subjective ideas held by individuals and so are always biased. If unbalanced opinions are presented as if they are facts, they act as propaganda or persuasion, e.g. a BAJR headline might state: "Unit of 1 is the prime cause of trouble in this area". This is presented as an objective fact but is clearly a subjective opinion.

An objective piece of information, therefore, needs either to be the whole truth and at least be unbiased or balanced, whereas a subjective point of view is biased because it is either not the complete picture or it is merely a viewpoint or expression of feelings.

I cadged this bit from some old course notes about fingerprinting and expert witnesses, but it is just as workable with archaeology...

In the legal arena, expert witness testimony is presented as opinion testimony, not because the conclusion is someone's personal opinion, but because it is a conclusion that the lay person is incapable of forming. The conclusion reached by the examiner is an “interpretation or conclusion by trained individuals after conducting an examination employing scientific principles, — that are reproducible.” Regardless of the scientific or technical discipline, the purpose of the expert witness in the legal system is to interpret information and form a conclusion that a jury of lay persons would be incapable of doing. If a person without any training in the area of identification would provide an opinion as to an identification, that opinion would be subjective and based on personal feelings, rather than skill, and would sound something like “it looks the same to me.” An examiner's conclusion is not based upon a personal opinion, but rather on an evaluation of the detail present using knowledge and skills acquired through training, education, and experience.
If defining the term 'expert witness' - Training, education, and experience are the tangible assets that form the foundation of an examiner's expertise and are not created in the examiner's mind. An examiner's knowledge and ability can be and is tested, is documented and can be verified, and is evaluated by the courts and juries every time the examiner takes the witness stand. One of the cornerstone principles of scientific evidence and its examination is that it is not influenced by the mood, emotions, or the personal prejudices of the examiner. Subjectiveness is based solely on personal feelings.

So... after all these years of being an experienced, trained, educated and peer-reviewed archaeologist...

I say Acheulian, you say Mousterrian,
I say pot-lid, natural fractured flint, you say rough-out, incomplete scraper,
I say Romano-Saxon, you say "no such thing!"
I say potato, you say potatoe.

... which one of us is right? We both are, of course

(unless it comes to where someone seems to be saying "if I want your opinion, I will give it to you" Which has happened once or twice with some postings / rantings above)

[BAJR Host]

I think I will start a new thread on this so as to keep this one on the ICE contracts - very interesting Mr Gor.



"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[Unitof1]

quote: It is simply not a matter for the IFA to decide who should be involved in particular types of contract.

Doctor- does the ice contract not proceed,presumably for members of the ifa in 1990 :

a Code of approved practice for the regulation of contractual arrangements in field archaeology for its members?

1man- does this really follow in 2004?

quote:The contract was produced this way because the IFA clearly did not have the expertise on contracts in-house but did have the required knowledge of how archaeology works, whereas the ICE/CCSJC did have both the contractual expertise and a specialist publishing house, but did not have sufficient archaeological knowledge to do the job themselves.

Why then in the ice contract, and also its guide, both intended for civil engineers, does the ifa singularly in any of the documents not mention the

Code of approved practice for the regulation of Contractual arrangements in field archaeology

Please someone tell me I am wrong, I have tried to read them twice, if only they were in digital form I could find out easily if I was making it up as I went along.

In the guide 1.5, page 3, mentions a Code of Conduct and a Code of approved Practice….(of what).

Nowhere in the guide or contarct are clauses of the Code of approved practice for the regulation of Contractual arrangements in field archaeology, related the to the ice clause or visa versa.

What is going on!

[Unitof1]

What should a contract in which one archaeologist employs another archaeologist look like? How would it relate to the ice contract?