Dear Philip and All,
Below is the reply from my Hungarian colleague. Seems like the Hungarians were writing diplomatic messages before the OED was thought about.
Cheers,
Neil
"Dear Neil,
I do not think that I can give you a clear definition for the two terms, however, it is true that we understand them in a different way. Rescue archaeology (or rescue excavation) was originally used for sites, where something was found accidentaly (by building activity, ploughing, etc.) and then it was "rescued". In that system, the term was used as the opposition of 'planned' excavation. In the previous legislation on archaeological excavations these two types were identified (in a legal sense as well), because they had different kind of rules for the organisation as well as for permission, and documentation. During the last 2 decades more and more rescue excavations were made, which were organised before the actual building activity (like motorway projects), so many of them can be understood as 'preventive' archaeology. As a result of this, the most recent law on cultural heritage created different categories, and there is a tendency (as far as I understand) to separate real rescue situations (where something has already been found) from preventive archaeology. However, for clear categories, the best is to see the text of this law. I'll forward your -email to Katalin Wollak, who is the expert archaeologist in these issues, working in the Cultural Heritage Institute. There is also a working version of this law in English, where some kind of definition (at least legal) can be found.
Best wishes
Jozsef"
>>> [log in to unmask] 23/04/2003 11:23:14 >>>
Sorry about clogging up peoples inboxes and for cross-posting but I feel I
have to share this with you.
The purpose of the thesaurus we are building is to allow public users, both
lay and professional, to access the National Heritage Policy documents of
the EU countries. We have tried to make the terminology used in the
thesaurus as basic as possible and define broad concepts which should be
understandable to anyone.
So I have finally decided to check out the OED. Now I know that some
subscribers to these list are dismayed at my use of the OED as the Oracle of
all wisdom but in this case I feel I may be forgiven for indulging myself.
We have recently taking possession of the 5th edition of the Shorter Oxford
and a nifty piece of work it is too. Anyway in my desperation I have had to
resort to checking the definition, in English, of the two words.
To my surprise I found that rescue archaeology actually has its own
definition under rescue. Here it is
"emergency excavation of archaeological sites in the face of projected
building or road development"
Seems fair to me!
As to whether Salvage Archaeology should be used again the OED has a
separate entry but only says that it is the North American version of rescue
archaeology.
Preventive does exist as a word (although like many of you I was in doubt
about it) and according to the OED it is preferred to preventative. However
the definition relates to preventive medicine or simply causing an obstacle
or hindrance which I don't think would mean much when applied to
archaeology, although I suppose that contractors may feel that is the case!
The arguments against Rescue archaeology (and to my dismay seem to be coming
from internal EH contributors) is that it should properly within the bounds
of PPG16 be referred to as "Archaeology in advance of development" or
"developer led archaeology". Oh and that it's very seventies!
But so are lava lamps and flairs and these have both undergone a revival.
If I may beg your indulgence I'm going to stick with "rescue archaeology"
and "rescue excavation" because even if they aren't the official terms at
least the majority of us and increasingly large numbers of members of the
public are familiar with them.
Pretty please!
Phil
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