2          The Context - Collaboration between archaeologists and geotechnical engineers

                                                                                                                         

Any civil engineering project is likely to have a geotechnical site investigation and some will also have a land contamination study. There is a presumption, in planning guidance, that an archaeological investigation will also be required. Usually this is very minor but an unexpected archaeological discovery can be very expensive to the developer, making archaeology a significant risk.

 

Geotechnical and archaeological site investigations are often entirely separate despite the fact that they may involve many of the same tasks and follow similar procedures from desk-top, through test excavations and boreholes to report. 

 

Although they may dig and bore through archaeological deposits, most geotechnical studies are of limited use to archaeologists because the information recorded is adapted specifically to the engineering needs of the project and site.

 

If the archaeologist and engineers could coordinate their site investigations, and engineers make records which archaeologists could use, then much duplication could be eliminated and the risks and cost to the client could be reduced.

 

In particular, if geotechnical investigations were adapted slightly – and at little additional  cost – they would often recover useful archaeological information early in a development project and enable archaeologists to have a much clearer idea of the distribution, nature and significance of buried remains before their own work begins. Indeed, for lack of such adaptations, the test-pits and boreholes of the geotechnical investigation are often repeated by archaeologists in order to get such basic data about a site before excavation is planned.

 

This is clearly wasteful for the developer who is paying for it all and opens them to a greater risk that significant archaeological remains will be encountered unexpectedly – which may mean that they will require a costly investigation or the redesign of the entire development,.