Sorry folks! The listserver has apparently changed. Where in the past
the adressee was clearly the whole list, this was not clear to me in
this situation (but the address in the reply address IS... ;-((
I don't expect to be my message being of interest to the whole list,
but we'll see...
oTTo
>>> [log in to unmask] 2-3-2005 16:23:11 >>>
Hi Allan,
It is not very easy to answer your questions, as the situation in
the Netherlands has some distinct similarities, but also differences.
First of all, I don't think there is any "archaeo-biological"
publication
that you could consult. Maybe Roel Lauweriers contribution in one
of the last AEA Newsletters might be of interest.
Here, the preservation-in-situ policy is also applied. But I think
this
works out somewhat differently here. Of course there are quite a lot
of
sites that are protected in some way or another, some even with their
own special locally heightened watertable, and some ships have even
been
replaced from their original context (which was unfavourable for
long-term preservation) to a ship-graveyard where they are better off,
at least that is hoped/suspected.
Some of the known sites are also monitored (in fact Standard
Archaeological Monitoring is one of the 'frontline' projects of the
ROB),
to see if preservation of different archaeological materials change (=
deteriorate) through time. Botanical macroremains are among the
most intensively studied materials in this respect.
But in cases where in situ preservation is no option (or in cases
where
this seems not feasible for a longer period of time), excavation is
still a quite normal way of escape. Assessments are not so common
here,
and quite often mis-used (?) as Laura arguments in her paper on the
Betuweroute (which I am still hoping to receive, no reaction yet).
If you wish, I can ask the project leader of the SAM project for
publications in English. He is also involved in the Planarch project
(with also British participants), for which an English publication
(or maybe not much more than an information sheet/folder)
exists.
Another subject being investigated right now is the "preservability"
of
botanical macroremains. Henk van Haaster and I started with creating a
rank list of species (higher taxonomic levels were excluded for
practical reasons). This list was created by first selecting the 15
publication with the longest records of waterlogged seeds identified
to
species in RADAR. Then we determined for each sample how many taxa
were
present. Subsequently, each taxon was given a score of 1 divided by
the
number of taxa in that particular sample. In this way, species present
in 'poor' samples reach a high score. And the reasoning is that poor
samples only contain the corrosion resistant species.
The resulting rank list (with Stellaria media, Chenopodium album
on top) we thought, would be a good starting point for the chemical
analyses of seeds, which is now carried out as a PhD project at the
Free
University in Amsterdam. We were also keen on analysing seeds that are
hardly found archaeobotanically (such as Petasites hybrida)
or that are indicative of "rich" and hopefully well preserved samples
(such as many grasses). However, the chemical contents of recent seeds
is so overloaded with components that according to the chemist have no
chance of surviving, that he preferred to start with archaeological
remains. He also thought it necessary to measure a wealth of soil
parameters, so all is going into a completely unexpected direction.
But
Henk van Haaster is more closely involved, if you want to know the
last
details, you should mail him. Finally, there will emerge results that
I
hope are comparable to our rank list, but we'll have to wait and see
for
a year or so...
If you happen to know any publication about the preservability of
botanical macroremains (I only know a Circaea publication which ranks
samples with Sambucus nigra as the most corroded, while this species
is
certainly not high on our rank list...), I would be highly interested!
If I touched upon subjects in this "braindump" for which you require
more information: please ask me!
I hope this is of some use for you, I must admit that I am not very
convinced of that...
All the best,
oTTo
>>> [log in to unmask] 2-3-2005 10:07:31 >>>
My entomological colleague Harry Kenward and I are currently writing a
paper on the effects of the changing culture of funding archaeology in
Britain - we are discussing the problems and advantages to
bioarchaeologists of working in a system in which there is a
presumption
that archaeological deposits are to be preserved 'in situ' wherever
possible, and where developers pay for (usually) small-scale
excavations
in advance of development - a system under which much of the
investigation of plant and animal remains is limited to brief survey
rather than detailed recording and which rarely leads to any kind of
proper publication (but which sometimes offers an opportunity to study
many sites across a landscape)...
We are keen to find out from colleagues if there are *published*
accounts giving the viewpoint on this topic from other countries in
which this culture of archaeological funding and resource management
has
also been established - do, please, tell us!
Allan
Dr Allan Hall, English Heritage Senior Research Fellow, Department of
Archaeology, University of York, The King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK
+44 1904 434950 (fax 433902)
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