15th November 2005, 11:18 AM
I dont quite follow that preservation in situ is a cop out; it should be the ideal. You are saying is that the evaluation results showed that although significant archaeological deposits were present on the site they occured below the projected impact of the development. Therefore a watching brief was put on as a condition;seems reasonable. The conditions were based on the results of your evaluation report.If its the piling which is destroying a site thats a different issue.
The impact of piling is always a tricky one; personally I would say that, apart from the impact of the pile itself, if the site contains waterlogged organic material piling may well change the chemical makeup of the environment which has sustained those deposits by impacting the layers below and also wicking water down from the surface and therefore what you will get is a slow deteriation rather than preservation in situ, but this is incredibly difficult to prove because it all depends on the geomorphology of the the particular site and the type of pile proposed.You would also have to monitor the deteriation rate but by doing so increase the impact on the archaeology. I understand that York are doing interesting work in this field but as it stands its damn difficult to come up with a reasonable argument.
If the main problem you have with this site is that the deveoper will wait until the archaeologists are off site and then trench, the watching brief condition should probably go along the lines of "all intrusive groundworks" in which case if the developer trenches without you in attendance he will be in breach of his permission, if you are in attendance then you would presumably stop the machine when you reached significant archaeology (waterlogged wood)and call out the curator.
I dont mean to suggest that you are wrong, I just wanted to explore the context in which a site could get trashed and the mechansims which exist to prevent it. The sad truth is that sites do get trashed under our current system.
The impact of piling is always a tricky one; personally I would say that, apart from the impact of the pile itself, if the site contains waterlogged organic material piling may well change the chemical makeup of the environment which has sustained those deposits by impacting the layers below and also wicking water down from the surface and therefore what you will get is a slow deteriation rather than preservation in situ, but this is incredibly difficult to prove because it all depends on the geomorphology of the the particular site and the type of pile proposed.You would also have to monitor the deteriation rate but by doing so increase the impact on the archaeology. I understand that York are doing interesting work in this field but as it stands its damn difficult to come up with a reasonable argument.
If the main problem you have with this site is that the deveoper will wait until the archaeologists are off site and then trench, the watching brief condition should probably go along the lines of "all intrusive groundworks" in which case if the developer trenches without you in attendance he will be in breach of his permission, if you are in attendance then you would presumably stop the machine when you reached significant archaeology (waterlogged wood)and call out the curator.
I dont mean to suggest that you are wrong, I just wanted to explore the context in which a site could get trashed and the mechansims which exist to prevent it. The sad truth is that sites do get trashed under our current system.