cleaning the beds of trenches

[Dinosaur]

Just spent a long afternoon with a county mounty wandering around a landscape littered with 50+ (and counting, ain't finished machining yet) big trial trenches and discussing what needed cleaning/excavating and what was obviously blank - workforce is going to be rather busy! Seemed to be a good compromise for achieving the objectives of the eval vs. the epic scale of the challenge. A bit of early curatorial input clarifies things considerably, rather than second-guessing what's required [in this case largely quantifying how successful a large dose of geophys has been in characterising what's actually there]

On some subsoils cut features can be pretty obvious - just a shame there's none of them around here, I've currently got some really, really s**t boulder-clay

[archaeologyexile]

Hi guys thanks for the replies, yet again there's an intersting difference in terminologies north and south of the border. I certainly accept the need for experience and geology to dictate what should happen but in Scotland routine hand cleaning does not happen unless asked for and very few curators ever inspect sites it's all taken on trust. Competitive tendering has slimmed down evaluation teams from say three per machine to one over the last 15 years. Thus even if the geology dictates that hand cleaning should happen it will not!

[Dinosaur]

That's depressing news. We've found on many sites around here that it often pays to leave trenches for a few days/weeks - sometimes 'invisible' features appear-themselves (same is happening on my current project). I've heard of jobs where 'blank' trenches are immediately backfilled which obviously negates that approach. I did a (open-area) cemetery a few years back where the odd phenomenon was going on of graves appearing-themselves at different rates, when first stripped you couldn't see a thing, but first one and then lots more graves became visible over the next few days/weeks so that we didn't know where to turn next. I'd love to know what the soil chemistry is that causes this, presumably some form of oxidation of the slightly increased organic content in the feature fills?

[archaeologyexile]

Yes, I've certainly noticed the same process, id always heard it described as to do with the organic content of the pits, the less it is the harder it is to see......though certainly if nothing turns up when the person watching the machines walks over, a 10 minute window of observation its ignored and the subsequently backfilled!

[pdurdin]

It could also be due to slightly different rates of evaporation due to the (presumably) different packing of the fill and surround?

[Dinosaur]

The weather here on Friday could most politely be described as 'damp' and new stuff was still showing up between the puddles...but yes, it's always worth walking over your site while it's drying after rain and noting the bits that still look moist when the rest is busy returning to dust/concrete.

[P Prentice]

jesus - i'm agreeing with dinosaur all through this thread so i must need a holiday

[Dinosaur]

Am on safe territory here, tricky to p*** anyone off

...need some sort of skill, otherwise people wouldn't still keep employing me - just don't let on that actually I haven't got X-ray vision

[CARTOON REALITY]

jesus - i'm agreeing with dinosaur all through this thread so i must need a holiday

Oh lovely, where are we going?

[P Prentice]

Oh lovely, where are we going?

back to provence - get your coat