ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeology

Essay Plan

The purpose of this essay is to find out whether there exists a distinction between reconnaissance, evaluation and full excavation useful in the fieldwork profession? Invariably, most archaeological landscape evaluations will use a combination of proven methods that will progressively focus upon and define areas of known or potential archaeological interest. The following methods are presented in what is considered to be the most appropriate order of application in field evaluation. The various methods are able to provide different types and levels of information and are critically reviewed with respect to these. The reporting of each stage may be carried out separately, especially if the various works are executed over a long period of time and/or by different organisations. Ideally the work will be carried out, or at least coordinated, by a lead archaeological organisation that can bring the results together in an appropriately synthetic and coherent way. 'Standards' for assessment, evaluation and excavation work have been produced by the Institute of Field Archaeologists. However most SMRs will wish to either issue their own specification for the work or endorse a project design or written scheme of investigation prepared by a consultant or archaeological contractor.

Archaeology

Introduction

Fieldworking involves a systematic walk-over of the proposal area, collecting and plotting the distribution of significant artefacts on a grid basis (Figure 2). For very large sites linear traverses between 10m and 20m apart will be appropriate with collections being made at 10m and 20m intervals respectively.

The significance of any finds will depend to some extent upon what is already known about the area and the date of the finds in question. In very broad terms prehistoric and Roman finds will be significant in any concentrations if there is no previous evidence for activity at those periods.

Typically, a prehistoric find would consist of flint, fire-cracked pebbles and possibly ceramics, whilst Roman material would probably consist predominantly of pottery and building materials. For later medieval and post-medieval periods the significance of fieldwalking results will largely be based upon concentrations of finds. Night-soiling of the fields from these periods onwards has resulted in many cultivated landscapes having a background of artefactual rubbish mixed into it. Only where higher relative concentrations of finds are recovered might these be considered significant (e.g. settlements and industrial/production sites).

Analysis

With the right strategy fieldwalking can evaluate large areas at relatively low cost. It has the potential to generally locate and date settlement and production or manufacturing sites. For unenclosed or truncated sites, particularly those of prehistoric date that evade detection by other remote sensing techniques, this is the only non intrusive method of detection in the field. However, areas to be walked must have been recently ploughed. Used on its own this method might give a false impression, particularly in terms of negative results, artefact visibility and sample bias.

Early prehistoric sites are particularly underrepresented, whilst many late prehistoric and Roman rural sites have low finds counts from open area excavation. It is possible that many of these would not be detected ...