Letter Bombs

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ARCHAEOLOGY MACHINED OUT

Although you edited out the name of the unit, I think that most of us down here can guess who they are.
While I was working for a council in East Anglia I ran a small excavation in the centre of a market town. In the plot next door, a certain unit had also undertaken an excavation the previous year. Reading their report it was painfully obvious that once again they had machined through medieval and Roman stratigraphy down to the natural. This meant that most features were only recorded in section unless they were deep enough to have their bases surviving. In one of their section drawings a Roman wall was visible, but there was no record of its alignment or length.

One of their former project officers came to work for us and told us that this was normal policy, in fact insisted upon by senior management. This unit gets a lot of work in our area, and most of their sites are similarly ruined. Something has to be done about them before they bring our profession into disrepute.

TELL US WHO TO SCRUTINIZE

Dear Digger, Please find attached our open, standing list of archaeological contractors. The list is not an 'approved' list, and infers no endorsement by the County Council. The list is used only for information purposes to help developers. If you think there are any contractors on this list that might benefit from closer monitoring or scrutiny by our service to improve quality control, then I would be grateful for your views. You could respond by simply asterisking such contractors and returning the document.

I have always taken the view that archaeological endeavour is a joint or partnership effort, and that higher standards are realised by involving everybody, curators, consultants, contractors, workers, academics, and avocational people.

- Neil Campling, Principal Archaeologist, North Yorkshire County Council