Bad for Archaeology - Good for Archaeologists - Discuss

[Dinosaur]

Anyone catch the Beeb 2 thing on infrastructure projects last night?

[notoverlookedfrontorrear]

I don't think its a paradox

[P Prentice]

I don't think its a paradox

i dont think its is either

[Doug]

I understand the whole preservation in situ but at a certain point everything turns back to dust so you have to excavate. Its debatable if you do it now or in 100 years but for the most part of is all going to need to be excavated (i say in the sense that if we are going to learn something from it, not in the practice sense of storage)

[Dinosaur]

Any amount of archaeology I've had to leave 'in situ' over the years has then been trashed, amazing how many destructive activities not covered by planning consents happen around the thing that's got the planning permission (many curators seem to think that 'indicative' drainage plans have something to do with reality? - errr, no! and there's a horrifying lack of curatorial understanding of how big a hole the developer is going to make around the thing they're building, footing trenches are rarely the same size as the agreed footings by the time the whole thing's fallen in a few times and they've ended up shuttering and backfilling...) -and I know of a few sites where the developer waited till the archaeologists had gone then had the rest out anyway....

[notoverlookedfrontorrear]

I dont think preservation in situ is necessarily good for archaeology in practice or principle

[P Prentice]

there is no such thing as preservation in situ

[Doug]

I dont think preservation in situ is necessarily good for archaeology in practice or principle

It is when you take into account the advances in methods. Imagine if everyone in the 18th and 19th centuries, hell even 30 years ago, "archaeologists" had held off on using dynamite, paying labours by the number of gold objects they found but not for charcoal bone, etc., cutting through the "boring" layers to get to the "good" stuff, etc. how much more we would know today.

Pretty sure in 50 years our grand kids will be shaking their heads and saying, %)"?%* idiots.

That being said there is a trade off. Stuff rots, tomb robbers, etc. etc. at some point you need to dig it, it is reaching the point were you don't lose to much but our methods are the best. That though is an art and not a science .

[Sith]

Perhaps we should be thankful that (apart from Mr Melton) politicians of all hues haven't discovered the third way: development devoid of any archaeology because of the 'crippling' costs being a 'barrier to growth'.

[kevin wooldridge]

Perhaps we should be thankful that (apart from Mr Melton) politicians of all hues haven't discovered the third way: development devoid of any archaeology because of the 'crippling' costs being a 'barrier to growth'.

When the Tories first started to dismantle our society back in the days of Thatcher they claimed that whilst loss of environment/heritage was to be regretted, at least the concept 'polluter/developer pays' would act as a restraint on the worst excesses of liberalism. I always presumed that in the case of our most cherished heritage/environment, the price the polluter would need to pay would be something in excess of their profit from the speculative development. Why can't we return to that principle?