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There seems to be a new fad.Some units seem to be quite happy to go hunting for features through 20-odd cms of overburden rather than open the site up properly.I understand that this approach would be rewarding in a budgetry sense but, I do hope that this is not going to become the norm...tiz nauseating particularly as two recent examples of this were sanctioned/dictated by consultants and was completely overlooked by curators.Whats going on?[?]
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
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Troll we all love you dearly but there are times when you can be quite exasperating. Maybe it is just me being thick but is there any chance you could provide a bit more information?
Perhaps something along the lines of...
It has come to my attention that on a such-and-such type of site [???? rural, urban, industrial, waterlogged, multi-period, well-preserved, deeply-stratified, prehistoric ????] a new sampling strategy was being adopted. The type of project is a [???? evaluation, excavation, watching brief ????] , but instead of [???? open area excavation down to natural, sampling of 5% by evaluation trenches ????] , the requirement seems to be to examine 20cms of the overburden [???? in what size of area, over the whole site, in metre square test pits ????] . This is being done [???? completely randomly by an unethical unit / at the request of the curator following detailed discussion of the issues relevant to this specific site / by evil gnomes in the grip of maniacal consultants ????].
I am very sorry if this sounds patronising, I don't mean it to and I am not trying to be a pedantic git, but a slightly different phrasing of the question might generate more helpful responses. I also wonder if the issues you have raised haven't already been discussed to some extent in
this thread ('Strip, Map and Sample')?
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I was a bit puzzled as well. It sounds like strip a bit of topsoil and dig holes on a ramdom basis to find features. Not every cost effective.
Peter
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Thought it was fairly plain.Dr Wardle grasped the issue firmly too.Exasperating or otherwise, I find plain speech to be rather effective and am heartily tired of issues being glossed over with pretty phraseology.However....
Rural site.Rather than strip the entire site, we were asked to pick a grid and identify features despite a covering of circa 20cms of topsoil.Believe it or not, the consultant expressly forbade us from cleaning first."Just plan what you see" was the concept.As a result,a complex system of ditches over a large area makes almost no sense whatsoever.Excavation through partially drawn "curtains" like this is not a rare thing.Recently, another firm employed the same tactics in order to sign ground off quickly.This is not a sampling strategy but simply a way of discarding archaeology quickly.Paul-whilst I accept your observations, I feel that the description I offered was adequate for discussion and falls within the frames of reference of the AUP.
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
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Whatever happened to the standard phrase in briefs, "overburden reduced to the first significant archaeological horizon"? Was the topsoil significant and therefore worthy of planning? How on earth did the consultant get this past a curator? This methodology also is clearly in breach of another standard phrase, "further excavation to be conducted using stratigraphic principles." If the topsoil was not removed by machine then it has to be removed by hand to satisfy this requirement. If not then any further features are dug out of sequence. Madness.
Sounds like a report to the IFA job, as it's bad practice all round.
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Good morning Merc.My view entirely.I think the element that struck me the most was the fact that both a unit director and a curator allowed a consultant to dictate terms without as much as a raised eyebrow.I stood in my trench and listened to a consultant decide what was to happen next for over 35 minutes and the attendant curator muttered not one syllable throughout. Shortly thereafter, magically, half the site was given back too.
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
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Sorry Troll
I agree with Paul and Peter. I'm still not sure what the situation was. If there was a complex of ditches showing surely the overburden had been removed? Or are you saying it was only partly removed. Please, a bit of clarity then we can make informed comment on the issues.
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Good morning Achey-hope you are well sire.
The topsoil was only partly removed from a large area due to dissapear due to quarrying. Rather than remove all topsoil, the developer/client was allowed to carry out topsoil removal largely unsupervised.As such, a large percentage of the site remained un-investigated and staff were expected to wander about and attempt to identify features through said overburden.Any further cleaning was not allowed.The result is that spurious plans were drawn upon which the consultant determined an investigative "methodology".This involved targetting these spurious "hot spots" and writing the rest off.
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
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Thank you for the clarification. Pretty phraseology was not the point, simply a bit more information about what on earth was going on!
I am still not entirely clear as to what happened with the topsoil, but from your description it all sounds somewhat unconventional to say the least. To have staff 'wandering around' digging holes at random suggests an anarchic approach to archaeological investigation.[?]
However I am wondering whether there was previous work which highlighted these 'hot spots' such as a desk-based assessment which used APs, or some form of geophysical survey prior to topsoil stripping? This is obviously the normal procedure. Is it possible that the consultant, curator and unit director (whose conversation you partly overheard) had access to additional data which you did not?
Mineral permissions are usually very tightly policed by LPAs (in some cases much more so than PPG16 work) because of the much greater landscape and environmental impact. It is worth remembering that even in a 'total excavation' situation large parts of a site might well be left unexplored because they contain areas of limited archaeological interest. We all have to make value judgments all the time about the relative worth of different bits archaeology.
I am not disputing your story, but I think we only have part of the picture here.
Your implication is that the consultant, curator and unit director were all in league to somehow subvert normal archaeological procedures. In which case that is a serious allegation. If that is what you genuinely feel then you should report to the BAJR hotline in confidence.
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Good morning Paul.I had tried to (clumsily) offer this as a brief concept for discussion as opposed to a full-blown statement of detail.I do of course accept everyones criticism of my clumsily penned opener.Have been on the end of a trowel for months and writing has become a secondary (and somewhat mechanical) process!
The methodology imposed by the consultant had clearly been adopted "on the hoof".A couple of us got all rebellious and ignored the "no further cleaning-just dig it" rule and cleaned a couple of areas to make a point.Lo and behold-verily-lots of features turned up and were completely at variance with the spurious plans we were asked to draw through said overburden.My main point here is not to vilify the unit in question.I found them to be very professional.Sadly, as elsewhere, units find themselves on the shi**y end of incompetent and or under-resourced Curators who in turn doff their caps to consultants who represent their clients best interests a priori.A complaint to the IFA in my view would reflect badly upon the unit itself and in my opinion, any complaints that I have relate to the curator and the consultant who in my humble opinion let the unit(and us all) down badly.I hope this helps.Again, apologies for my clumsiness...will buy crayons and practise
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
