13th October 2012, 05:43 PM
The simplest answer is to not remove any of the skeleton. After all what benefit is there, considering that an evaluation's purpose is to determine the significance of remains, not to analyse or to 'preserve by record'? In evaluations, I always excavated just to the top of the human remains and didn't even fully expose them.
Of course, there are always exceptions. For example, if you have several metres of burials and need to determine how deep and concentrated they are, both to determine significance and to give the poor manager some data from which to cost an excavation. Or if the remains were clearly not going to survive in situ, e.g. just under plough horizon, changes in hydrology, etc.
Not sure that helps the OP...
Of course, there are always exceptions. For example, if you have several metres of burials and need to determine how deep and concentrated they are, both to determine significance and to give the poor manager some data from which to cost an excavation. Or if the remains were clearly not going to survive in situ, e.g. just under plough horizon, changes in hydrology, etc.
Not sure that helps the OP...