12th July 2007, 02:45 PM
PS. For my own 2'pence worth, I don't think has ever been stated that the data collated for AIP is a replacement for someone looking at the actual report - however, it does act an index, enabling people to discover about fieldwork which is only published as grey literature. For example if you wanted to know about Roman certain archaeological features (e.g. ovens) discovered within an area in a certain time period - AIP's database could be used to find out what excavations (and where these were located) recorded the specific feature . You would then know which reports to target for further information (if AIP summary didn't contain enough info).