5th January 2013, 03:10 PM
A more integrated approach as you're suggesting might permit a re-think of how HER data is structured ('spots on maps') - as an e.g. we've recently been dumping all the available graphic data (published and unpublished excavation plans, APs, geophys, historic mapping, local knowledge etc, but sadly not topo/geological at least thus far) for the much-investigated Catterick area onto a GoogleEarth overlay and the results could succinctly be described as Wow! - but the HER will still only be able to show the thing as a huge series of unintelligable single points due to the way it operates with the data split into brief entries for individual findspots/interventions. Even Pete Wilson's monograph was forced by circumstances/resources to treat the Roman data on a rather disjointed excavation-by-excavation basis, even though in reality its all just one big multi-period site [of which the Roman data is only one part]. The Anglian 'sites' were published seperately, and no one has yet even attempted an overview for the huge body of pre-Roman data [think everyone's expecting me to tackle that at some point], and the HER splits it all up by period just to muddy the waters further...oh, and we can now tentatively link the Catterick stuff for some periods to a very extensive hinterland which on the HER merely appears as another series of apparently unconnected isolated dots. Some site naming isn't helpful either - for the [still unpublished] Scorton Roman cemetery much-mentioned-in-the-Oxford-Lankhills-cemetery monograph read 'Catterick Roman Town' - this is never made clear and I doubt anyone who's read that has ever actually reached for a map or hunted down the individual farm name [actually that's a case where a HER dot would clarify things]. Anyone doing a 'quick' DBA in the area based on the current HER data, particularly if doing from 'outside' and unfamiliar with the area, hasn't got a chance!...