26th September 2010, 01:04 PM
I have to say I agree with TS archaeology does not generally increase the monetary value of a development. This is to be contrasted with historic buildings when their presence often does. Similarly archaeology, history and architectural history (and artefact collection) are popular amongst the general public but this is very different to the monetary value of an archaeological site or a development following an excavation.
I am all in favour of research coming out of work brought about by development and making the result available to the populace. The point is how far is field work meaningful research? A watching brief or evaluation that finds nothing is clearly not. Yes an excavation provides data for research but how far is it research in itself. (This is a very old debate).
PPG 16 archaeology has produced hundreds if not thousands of volumes of excavation reports of a very high quality (compared to what went before) and many areas of study have been revolutionised by the wealth of data produced. But to my mind the problem is that the sampling strategy for data collection is dictated by where land is required for development and this leads to a very skewed data set. The massive area studies generated by projects such as Heathrow, The Eton Rowing Lake, Thanet Earth and similar counter this but how far are the results typical of the country as whole?
Every PPG 16 excavation is geared to a set of research goals as far they can be in a single project - this is a basic requirement in every part of the country.
Far from being like the wild west with cow boys PPG 16 brought in a massive injection of funding to archaeology say 100 million a year and with it a massive increase in knowledge. I not saying the current system is perfect it isn't from many points of view it is just so much better than the state system that existed before.
Peter
I am all in favour of research coming out of work brought about by development and making the result available to the populace. The point is how far is field work meaningful research? A watching brief or evaluation that finds nothing is clearly not. Yes an excavation provides data for research but how far is it research in itself. (This is a very old debate).
PPG 16 archaeology has produced hundreds if not thousands of volumes of excavation reports of a very high quality (compared to what went before) and many areas of study have been revolutionised by the wealth of data produced. But to my mind the problem is that the sampling strategy for data collection is dictated by where land is required for development and this leads to a very skewed data set. The massive area studies generated by projects such as Heathrow, The Eton Rowing Lake, Thanet Earth and similar counter this but how far are the results typical of the country as whole?
Every PPG 16 excavation is geared to a set of research goals as far they can be in a single project - this is a basic requirement in every part of the country.
Far from being like the wild west with cow boys PPG 16 brought in a massive injection of funding to archaeology say 100 million a year and with it a massive increase in knowledge. I not saying the current system is perfect it isn't from many points of view it is just so much better than the state system that existed before.
Peter