13th September 2013, 01:03 PM
Yep, yep and yep. All good points.
Though can't help prodding a bit more.
What constitutes significant archaeology can vary from situation to situation, site to site, region to region.
And yes topsoil, or to be more precise, what is in it can be significant archaeological remains requiring recovery and recording in some areas.
See the EH Research Strategy for Prehistory.......though not sure how widely it has been spread as yet (we got a consultation draft).
Some jobs require mitigation of the loss of worked flint from the topsoil prior to the development going ahead.
As many will know, mathematical modelling is dependent on the basic assumptions of the model (what is a site, what are the factors affecting its location, what errors exist in the data, what skewing factors exist). The proportion of the total dataset entered into any model will dictate its usefulness in predicting......just look at the climatic model for example.
Now I would argue that for archaeology we are still only looking at a small proportion of the total as a start, archaeology is only a proportion of past human activity.
Surviving archaeology represents a small proportion of the former total.
Known archaeology is only a tiny fragment of the surviving archaeology.
You just have to be involved in large projects in areas where DBA's used to come up with nothing, like the Holderness plain in East Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and the 'missing' Iron Age of Durham to get an idea of just how little we know about even simple distributions of most 'sites'.
This is not meant to be insulting Doug, as if you've been studying this for 40 years you must know this. I am fascinated by your claim and want more elucidation, if that is possible.
In my experience of site prediction when for instance being involved in preliminary archaeological works on pipelines, there are rules of thumb that are useful. But people are, and were, contradictory, arsey and stubborn. Sites always seem to crop up where unexpected.
I am interested in how you test your model.
Though can't help prodding a bit more.
What constitutes significant archaeology can vary from situation to situation, site to site, region to region.
And yes topsoil, or to be more precise, what is in it can be significant archaeological remains requiring recovery and recording in some areas.
See the EH Research Strategy for Prehistory.......though not sure how widely it has been spread as yet (we got a consultation draft).
Some jobs require mitigation of the loss of worked flint from the topsoil prior to the development going ahead.
As many will know, mathematical modelling is dependent on the basic assumptions of the model (what is a site, what are the factors affecting its location, what errors exist in the data, what skewing factors exist). The proportion of the total dataset entered into any model will dictate its usefulness in predicting......just look at the climatic model for example.
Now I would argue that for archaeology we are still only looking at a small proportion of the total as a start, archaeology is only a proportion of past human activity.
Surviving archaeology represents a small proportion of the former total.
Known archaeology is only a tiny fragment of the surviving archaeology.
You just have to be involved in large projects in areas where DBA's used to come up with nothing, like the Holderness plain in East Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and the 'missing' Iron Age of Durham to get an idea of just how little we know about even simple distributions of most 'sites'.
This is not meant to be insulting Doug, as if you've been studying this for 40 years you must know this. I am fascinated by your claim and want more elucidation, if that is possible.
In my experience of site prediction when for instance being involved in preliminary archaeological works on pipelines, there are rules of thumb that are useful. But people are, and were, contradictory, arsey and stubborn. Sites always seem to crop up where unexpected.
I am interested in how you test your model.