26th May 2005, 04:54 PM
I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble reconciling comments by curators on this thread and others with my experience. Very very seldom do my primary records ever get looked at by monitors, and certainly I would never be advised on the benefits of context sheets over trench sheets, or anything else so absurd. The only thing that is ever occasionally questioned is the report, while the means of acquiring the information it contains (while complying with the broad requirements of the WSI) is largely up to me. When the report gets questioned it is invariably over typo's or more worryingly why I didn't monitor a part of the site that had previously been machined away by the developer without notification!
Admittedly I tend to do small to medium sized projects which may rank quite low on curators priority list, so I may be seeing only part of the picture. I for one have been bemoaning toothless monitoring my entire career and it seems to be getting worse in my region. (Yorkshire) What do others think?
As for crazy site strategies; well, preservation in-situ, usually between piles, has always struck me as madness, when the preservation part of it is on the say so of the developer! I have done far less work in my historic city and seen far more destructive development that anywhere else I've worked. All down to preservation in-situ and sustainable development policies.
Don't even get me started on the watching briefs. I've lost count of the number of medieval village and town deeply stratified sites I've tried to record under watching brief conditions. Did the curators not expect that kind of strat mext to the medieval church? I despair.
What is others experience? I'm all for naming and shaming of cowboy units, but what about the same for cowboy curators?
Admittedly I tend to do small to medium sized projects which may rank quite low on curators priority list, so I may be seeing only part of the picture. I for one have been bemoaning toothless monitoring my entire career and it seems to be getting worse in my region. (Yorkshire) What do others think?
As for crazy site strategies; well, preservation in-situ, usually between piles, has always struck me as madness, when the preservation part of it is on the say so of the developer! I have done far less work in my historic city and seen far more destructive development that anywhere else I've worked. All down to preservation in-situ and sustainable development policies.
Don't even get me started on the watching briefs. I've lost count of the number of medieval village and town deeply stratified sites I've tried to record under watching brief conditions. Did the curators not expect that kind of strat mext to the medieval church? I despair.
What is others experience? I'm all for naming and shaming of cowboy units, but what about the same for cowboy curators?