Fact Files

The Elgin Marbles
The Elgin Marbles are one of the great treasures of the British Museum but one that the Greek government have long fought to have returned. The marble sculptures were removed by Lord Elgin with the permission of the Turkish Government, then the overlords of Greece, in the early 19th century. He then sold them to the British Museum who insist that its trustees are forbidden by British law to dispose of any objects that are in their care. The debate continues with a new museum being built to house the marbles in Athens. Here, if they had remained in place, the friezes would have suffered damage over the last two centuries from atmospheric pollution at the very least. But should they still remain in London if their safety and protection can be guaranteed in the place where they were originally intended for display? The debate continues.
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Human remains and reburial
A subject of considerable concern is the final location of human remains after they have been excavated and studied. While there are no hard and fast rules it is more likely that Christian remains will eventually be reburied in consecrated ground after study while those of pagan Saxon, Roman or prehistoric date will be placed in museum storage. Returning all burials to the ground after study is not practicable as, in many cases, the original burial site has been destroyed or built over.

Where any collection of skeletons is considered to be of sufficient importance then the case may be made for storage rather than reburial. The assemblage of over 10,000 medieval skeletons recently excavated from the Spitalfields burial ground in London might be considered an ideal candidate for reburial. However, they are to be stored by the Museum of London as this huge sample will provide valuable data about the health and mortality patterns of population of medieval London both now and in the future. The storage of large numbers of human burials does pose problems for museums, as each skeleton requires a box approximately .035m3 in capacity and many museums are simply running out of storage space.
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The importance of context
The context in which an object is found is of crucial importance if the object is to be best understood. At a broad level, knowing the objects location when found will enable it to be related to other information, it may for example be associated with previous finds or lie within or close to sites visible on aerial photographs. At a more detailed level, knowing the depth at which an object was found, the layer of soil in which it lay and what lay above it, together with information about other non-metallic finds that were associated with it are all crucial. Often the precise context of an object can only be determined by means of a small scale excavation centred on the original find spot. Such investigation should only be carried out by qualified archaeologists.
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Sites and Monuments Records
Most counties or administrative areas keep a systematic record of all known archaeological sites, monuments and find spots within their designated area. They are often held and maintained by archaeologists working within planning departments and are invaluable in development control, responding to threats from road building, quarrying or other type of potentially damaging activity.

In most cases the record will consist of a computer based index which records information such as location, type of site, date and history of discovery and interpretation linked to a series of annotated maps at 1:10000 or 1:2500 scale. Increasingly the mapping system is also computer based. While individual records may be based on information recorded decades or even centuries ago, the overall record will continue to grow as a result of new discoveries. It is vital that any new finds or observations rapidly become part of the SMR as unrecorded they cannot play any part in helping research or the formulation of planning decisions.
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Evaluation
Since the introduction of Planning Policy Guideline 16, there has been a huge increase in the number of archaeological evaluations carried out in advance of planning decisions. Typically they can include all or a selection of the following methods of investigation, all designed to locate, define and characterise the archaeology of an area.

Desk based assessment – in which information from the SMR, maps, documents and aerial photographs is collated and assessed.

• Field examination ('walk over survey'). A ground check on recorded sites and on land use while searching for unrecorded information.
  
  
• On the basis of the above some measured survey may be needed.
  
  
• Geophysical survey of defined sites or areas.
  
  
• Fieldwalking if the land use and crop conditions are suitable.
  
  
• Excavation of test pits, often including sieving of soil in order to standardize artefact retrieval.
  
  
• Machine trenching, often on a regular sampling basis. 2% is a common sample, (in practical terms one trench, the width of a machine bucket, a 100m spacing). Within these trenches all exposed remains will be recorded but only a sample excavated to provide evidence of date, function and environmental potential.

Fieldwalking
Fieldwalking, sometimes called 'surface collection', is a technique of investigation, primarily site location involving the collection of artifacts from the surface of ploughed fields. Traditionally an activity carried out by amateur archaeologists it has become much more systematic in recent years, collection within squares based on the national grid replacing more casual collection in which the location of finds was at best vaguely recorded.

The types of artefact most commonly to be found in these circumstances are naturally robust and resistant to destruction by ploughing. Worked flint and stone together with the more durable types of pottery, Roman, medieval and later, and building materials such as tile, brick or stone are the most common finds.

What should be remembered though is that even surface material from disturbed ploughsoil is part of the archaeological record of a site (or in some cases may be the only evidence for a particular type of activity). Consequently finds should only be removed when necessary for study and only then if collected on a systematic basis. All finds should be reported to the appropriate museum in order for them to be included in the local Sites and Monuments Record.
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Preservation: in situ or by record
The aim of archaeology should be to understand the physical remains of our past and to preserve them for future generations to enjoy and be able to study. So, in an ideal world all archaeological remains would remain buried, preserved 'in situ', and would only be disturbed when careful considered and minimally damaging research excavations were carried out. However, this is impossible as it would effectively bring an end to any development and curtail many farming activities. The alternative, in which archaeological sites are excavated and recorded under controlled conditions prior to any destructive activity is often referred to as 'preservation by record'. In theory, the sites records, written, drawn and photographic, together with the finds themselves preserved in a stable state, should enable the site to be reconstructed, not physically, as the soils of which it was composed have gone, but in a way that enables it to be understood and reinterpreted.
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Scheduled Ancient Monuments (schedules)
In England, monuments defined as being of national importance have been given statutory protection from damage or destruction since the first legislation was passed in 1882. Since then the list (or 'schedule') of scheduled ancient monuments (SAMs) has grown in piecemeal fashion until, by the late 1980's it included over 13,000 monuments. These, ranging from ruined abbeys and prehistoric burial mounds to World War Two pill boxes still only represented about 2% of the sites thought to exist. In 1987 a project known as the Monuments Protection Programme was initiated by English Heritage to review and overhaul the schedule, assessing all recorded sites whether currently scheduled or not against defined criteria and, in each case, if they were deemed to be of national importance, adding them to the schedule.

This programme continues and will eventually result in better understanding of and protection for the most important archaeological sites and landscapes in England. The legislation was brought up to date most recently in the National Heritage Act of 1983 which states that it is an offence to carry out works to a SAM, or affect it, without the prior consent of the Secretary of State. It is also an offence to use a metal detector on a scheduled monument without consent from English Heritage.
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Published: 28-01-2005