HER Searches - In Person?

[Dinosaur]

As a personal observation, I (and my colleagues) have done any number of fieldwork projects where the DBA has been totally inadequate and has effectively had been had to be done again by us as the 'archaeological background' part of the WSI. Relying on HER data alone leads to a 'spots on maps' mentality. On a slightly different tack, one example I dealt with a couple of years ago had had a borehole report tacked on as an appendix to the DBA presumably to make it look thicker, but the author clearly hadn't bothered to read (or didn't have the skill to interpret) the thing and had completely failed to notice that the boreholes had identified extremely important and previously unidentified archaeology in their own right, which then had to be highlighted in the WSI. Not sure where I'm going with this, other than to point out that only people who know what they're doing and understand the available data (and where to find it) should be allowed anywhere near DBAs

[kevin wooldridge]

Just popped in to say... damn good reply/point.

The DBA is now a project in itself, where the client researches and collates ( via the archaeologists ) the information that should be already available. So it can be researched again the next time by the next client.

I think that was the point I was trying to make...Why should anyone (developer, researcher, interested 3rd party) have to pay for things time and time again when a definitive updated version of the archaeological potential could be compiled and held by the planning authority, perhaps funded by an access fee (sure to be less than the cost of commissioning a 'fresh' DBA). This also ties into Dino's point and would help ensure both the technical competence and integrity of the DBA.....

[Dinosaur]

A more integrated approach as you're suggesting might permit a re-think of how HER data is structured ('spots on maps') - as an e.g. we've recently been dumping all the available graphic data (published and unpublished excavation plans, APs, geophys, historic mapping, local knowledge etc, but sadly not topo/geological at least thus far) for the much-investigated Catterick area onto a GoogleEarth overlay and the results could succinctly be described as Wow! - but the HER will still only be able to show the thing as a huge series of unintelligable single points due to the way it operates with the data split into brief entries for individual findspots/interventions. Even Pete Wilson's monograph was forced by circumstances/resources to treat the Roman data on a rather disjointed excavation-by-excavation basis, even though in reality its all just one big multi-period site [of which the Roman data is only one part]. The Anglian 'sites' were published seperately, and no one has yet even attempted an overview for the huge body of pre-Roman data [think everyone's expecting me to tackle that at some point], and the HER splits it all up by period just to muddy the waters further...oh, and we can now tentatively link the Catterick stuff for some periods to a very extensive hinterland which on the HER merely appears as another series of apparently unconnected isolated dots. Some site naming isn't helpful either - for the [still unpublished] Scorton Roman cemetery much-mentioned-in-the-Oxford-Lankhills-cemetery monograph read 'Catterick Roman Town' - this is never made clear and I doubt anyone who's read that has ever actually reached for a map or hunted down the individual farm name [actually that's a case where a HER dot would clarify things]. Anyone doing a 'quick' DBA in the area based on the current HER data, particularly if doing from 'outside' and unfamiliar with the area, hasn't got a chance!...

[Wax]

HERs need not be dots on a map if they were statutory they could be so much more especially if libary links etc were used. The problem is there is no money to maintain and update them. A national HER freely accessible is what we should be aiming at. With local archaeology services falling by the wayside enjoy the HERs while you have them. Let's not knock the HERs for what they are unable to do because of lack of funding but lets support them and defend them from being dismantled. How many of you have looked at the Landscape Characterisations that have been done using HER data?

[kevin wooldridge]

How many of you have looked at the Landscape Characterisations that have been done using HER data?

Yes I have....and to be truthful, with some notable exceptions (mainly coastal surveys) I am not over-impressed. One of the problems is that few use any intelligible form of GIS and where they do it rarely appears in a format that acknowledges adjacent counties or regions. Some use a very simplistic 'definitions' list, some use an extremely complex, but not cross-referenced system. The majority are based upon defined historical and prehistorical 'period' categorisation, whereas many would benefit from being subject specific (this is after-all supposed to be a landscape study and not a period survey). The worst error of all to my mind is that there is not a single study, of all those I have looked at, which offers explanation of 'absence' in the landscape.....surely that is as critical (cos we are after all archaeologists) as simply regurgitating Portable Antiquities loggings....

[Dinosaur]

The worst error of all to my mind is that there is not a single study, of all those I have looked at, which offers explanation of 'absence' in the landscape....

I can think of any number of cases where explaining 'absence' in archaeological distribution would result in lengthy and complex legal proceedings?

[kevin wooldridge]

I can think of any number of cases where explaining 'absence' in archaeological distribution would result in lengthy and complex legal proceedings?

Probably....

[P Prentice]

I think that was the point I was trying to make...Why should anyone (developer, researcher, interested 3rd party) have to pay for things time and time again when a definitive updated version of the archaeological potential could be compiled and held by the planning authority, perhaps funded by an access fee (sure to be less than the cost of commissioning a 'fresh' DBA). This also ties into Dino's point and would help ensure both the technical competence and integrity of the DBA.....

i dont think you could continually update a national/regional/county/district/ or even borough her. there is usually far too much to be interpretted. a specific site will always require a specific dba with very little opportunity for crossover if it is done properly. and the number of staff working in her/smr that are capable of interpretting the data they collate is worryingly few.

[kevin wooldridge]

i dont think you could continually update a national/regional/county/district/ or even borough her. there is usually far too much to be interpretted. a specific site will always require a specific dba with very little opportunity for crossover if it is done properly. and the number of staff working in her/smr that are capable of interpretting the data they collate is worryingly few.

Perhaps I wasn't very clear. What I meant was...developer makes application. Planning department instructs HER section to make report on specific site proposal as technical advice to planning committee. Developer pays proportional fee for technical advice dependent on scale of development. If development proceeds, technical advice becomes basis for evaluation or excavation WSI....thereafter the normal madness of commercial archaeology returns with any number of competitors cutting their throats to achieve the project brief.....Of course this system has been tested. Its what we used to have in some parts of the country prior to PPG16...it worked!!

Many local authorities issue planning outlines for particular sites when trying to attract investors/developers. There is no problem with such an outline also including an historic/archaeological element

[P Prentice]

you are forgetting that your average developer will have been persuaded by, or asked his consultant to produce a less biased dba - one that significantly reduces the likely impact on the (debatable) archaeological resource.