19th February 2014, 10:40 AM
Good question Kevin!
I may be too institutionalised to answer it objectively now, but I wonder how we could excavate everything on an urban site so effectively? On a site where you can get away with digging percentages of features it's not really necessary but in a situation where you have to dig the upper levels away in their entireity to get to the lower stuff then I'm not sure there's a better strategy.
We did trial a digital planning system on Bucklersbury, but the various steel props, trench sheets and other engineering paraphenalia got in the way and it would have taken longer than SCR, moving the kit around to miss the obstructions. It did work beautifully on tessellated floors etc though, allowing the detail to be recorded quickly and accurately. GPS doesn't work in towns due to the height of surrounding buildings.
To quote an expert on the subject, Ed Harris himself said recently that the recording of 'surfaces' is crucial for the understanding of complex strat, and SCR combined with his matrix enables the site to be seen in four dimensions! Certainly once the dating information is combined with the digitised SC plans on a GIS programme the whole thing leaps out at you. Land Use diagrams remain pretty crucial when showing phasing, although they aren't included in that many publications these days.
Harris also said (in a Hodder-esque moment), that SCR and the matrix enable the excavator themselves to determine the sequence of their area of site, although with the caveat they they need to know what they are doing...
So with a highly trained workforce, up-to-date software and a sharing of data across wide geographical areas SCR should still be the best way to identify themes and development. What could possibly go wrong!?
I may be too institutionalised to answer it objectively now, but I wonder how we could excavate everything on an urban site so effectively? On a site where you can get away with digging percentages of features it's not really necessary but in a situation where you have to dig the upper levels away in their entireity to get to the lower stuff then I'm not sure there's a better strategy.
We did trial a digital planning system on Bucklersbury, but the various steel props, trench sheets and other engineering paraphenalia got in the way and it would have taken longer than SCR, moving the kit around to miss the obstructions. It did work beautifully on tessellated floors etc though, allowing the detail to be recorded quickly and accurately. GPS doesn't work in towns due to the height of surrounding buildings.
To quote an expert on the subject, Ed Harris himself said recently that the recording of 'surfaces' is crucial for the understanding of complex strat, and SCR combined with his matrix enables the site to be seen in four dimensions! Certainly once the dating information is combined with the digitised SC plans on a GIS programme the whole thing leaps out at you. Land Use diagrams remain pretty crucial when showing phasing, although they aren't included in that many publications these days.
Harris also said (in a Hodder-esque moment), that SCR and the matrix enable the excavator themselves to determine the sequence of their area of site, although with the caveat they they need to know what they are doing...
So with a highly trained workforce, up-to-date software and a sharing of data across wide geographical areas SCR should still be the best way to identify themes and development. What could possibly go wrong!?