25th October 2012, 08:45 PM
I feel I'm being a bit miscontrued here. I didn't say there was no point in doing watching briefs, just that they shd only be done in certain circumstances and with a tight Method Statement outlining the scheme of works incorporating intervention by archaeologists, and appropriate levels of reassessment and a re-think of the work going ahead. In response to P Durdin, if you really reckon that a WB is going to pick up your archaeology when an eval has failed then I suspect you need to re-think your eval strategy. Or perhaps I'm missing a nuance here.
My all-time favourite example arises from a SAM (an Iron Age ditched settlement in coastal southern East Anglia.) Only half of the settlement was scheduled; the other half (situated beneath a former Victorian barracks complex) was deemed sufficiently safeguarded (by the Consultant Archaeologist and an uninterested curator) by a WB on very intrusive drainage groundworks in advance of housing development. Splendidly, a slightly random archaeological hero was despatched (along with others who were supposed to be more on the ball) who promptly noticed that the impact of the military buildings was v limited and localised and that, in fact, archaeological deposits survived. Cue an excavation discovering roundhouses, pits, postholes and the whole IA caboodle. Oh, and late Saxon stuff on a site with tantalising historical evidence for Danish raiders overwintering. Now, a simple decently conducted evaluation wd have saved the client a whole load of hassle and money up front. Give 'em the bad news first, get th shock out of the way, we can all get used to it and then work out where we'll dig first to get the groundworkers onto site, do the archaeology properly, keep on talking to each other and end up happy and the best of friends. That site wouldn't have been so difficult, but a consultant and a curator got in the way...
My all-time favourite example arises from a SAM (an Iron Age ditched settlement in coastal southern East Anglia.) Only half of the settlement was scheduled; the other half (situated beneath a former Victorian barracks complex) was deemed sufficiently safeguarded (by the Consultant Archaeologist and an uninterested curator) by a WB on very intrusive drainage groundworks in advance of housing development. Splendidly, a slightly random archaeological hero was despatched (along with others who were supposed to be more on the ball) who promptly noticed that the impact of the military buildings was v limited and localised and that, in fact, archaeological deposits survived. Cue an excavation discovering roundhouses, pits, postholes and the whole IA caboodle. Oh, and late Saxon stuff on a site with tantalising historical evidence for Danish raiders overwintering. Now, a simple decently conducted evaluation wd have saved the client a whole load of hassle and money up front. Give 'em the bad news first, get th shock out of the way, we can all get used to it and then work out where we'll dig first to get the groundworkers onto site, do the archaeology properly, keep on talking to each other and end up happy and the best of friends. That site wouldn't have been so difficult, but a consultant and a curator got in the way...