Intrested to know about other units or museum bodies discard policies for finds. Usual problems of lack of storage at both unit and County level so will have to start serious discussions about implementing one at this end.
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Hiya - strangely, had this conversation yesterday! Some of the things mentioned then and that I've heard of before were:
1. residual material - particularly animal bone
2. stupid amounts of brick and tile and daub
3. give thought to why you are keeping unstratified finds - again thinking animal bones, wood, etc unless they are unusual/worked
4. countless non-diagnositic body sherds from enormous roman and med assemblages - is there a valid reason to hang on to this once assessed?
5. burnt flint
6. clay tobacco pipe stems (if non-diagnositic)
7. glass sherds (thinking particularly ever decreasing sizes of body and window pane pieces).
I think that you need to talk to the specialists involved, as they can probably be sensible about what is useful. I think the LAARC may have some guidelines, but they musuem of london website is down just now.
Would like to hear what conclusions you come to
ML
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Typically after having fully catalogued a CBM assemblage I will recomend c. 90% of it is discarded in a published location, although the client/ accessioning museum should have the last word. It would be nice if some thought went into the initial retreival of unstructured assemblages of CBM dumps. One thing that ought to be avoided is the retreival, transport and dumping of unstudied stratified material ( cue long rambling rant...)
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Quote:quote:Originally posted by monitor lizard
2. stupid amounts of brick and tile and daub
My colleague and I once built a six foot long, two foot deep, five foot high wall in the finds room out of brick 'samples' from an urban site. It only stopped at five foot because there was a shelf in the way.
I agree that there is a need for aplication of sense in such situations. How many samples of the same thing from the same period do you need? Not enough to make a five foot wall, certainly. There is, of course, a lot to be said for holding onto things, but only up to a point. Space may be infinite but finds labs rarely are. If a bit more thought went into what's kept and wahat's discarded
at or shortly after the time of excavation, it would make life a lot easier in the future.
I realise that I haven't provided any additional information here, Digger, but I know what you mean and I think a lot of people do.
Peace,
lyi.
"Kick a megalith and it hurts."
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Who knows what is undiagnostic? 25 or so years ago lipid analysis on pot sherds would not have been considered. In 25 years it may be the norm. 150 years ago human remains were not kept terribly well, if at all, and rarely cremated remains. I have recently been frustrated in that a collection of skeletal remains were not labelled and I couldn't identify individuals (not the museum's fault, it was the 19th excavator to whom these things were not important).
I can't suggest where to put it all though...
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
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How many samples of the same thing from the same period do you need?
It depends if they are in fact the same thing from the same period - It is quite important for CBM as well as pottery to be able to determine proportions by form and fabric by phase ( or other stratigraphic unit) - and it also depends on what the project design requirments are ( e.g. if you are interested in taphonomic charecterisation then you need to know fragment counts and the like...)
Obviously a lot of such problems could be nipped in the bud if specialists were consulted about sampling procedures etc before a pproject began. - the most effecient way to examine CBM is to have on site facilities for CBM specialist to work on the assemblage as it comes out of the ground....
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Talking of this.... Tile man...
nice person that you are
Have you thought about writing a BAJR guide to CBM?
a short 4-5 pages explaining - why its important, how to collect, useful references, etc etc???????
Another day another WSI?
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Sampling on site should be undertaken in consultation with the relevant specialist. Discard of material should be undertaken by the specialist following assessment/ completion of a report following the full study of all material.
It is quite simple really.
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Agree with the on site specialist. I've just recently gone over 3500kg of brick samples on site as part of putting together a fabric and form series. The vast majority being discarded on site and reused as hard core (except for my new front path!). Was going to talk to Molss as well as the relevant museums, but nice to get some feed back from those with relevant experience and ideas on such a contentious subject/issue.
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