What is the difference between Rescue Archaeology and problem-oriented research?.
Problem-oriented research has to have a strategy developed which will convince research funding councils, or local authority planners and developers that the work to be done is essential, and is properly planned, staffed, and to have reasonable costs.
Some examples of problem-oriented researches are:.
o Survey of a landscape to determine the density and history of settlement.
o Uncovering of a single building such as a theatre or church to determine its architecture and history.
o Excavation of a deep site with a long history to provide a "key" to the relative chronology of a number of smaller, shallower sites.
o Recovery of a representative selection of artefacts of pottery, metal or stone to enable the relationship between different areas or regions to be determined.
In problem-oriented research you also have to be prepared for the unexpected, for example, the fields projects that have already started, would have one or two well defined goals, whereas the accidents of discovery may well change the emphasis during a single seasons work. So the excavator in problem-oriented research must be well prepared for the unexpected as well as anticipating discoveries. The excavator must also make sure the provision is made on what happens to the site after the excavation.
The difference of Rescue archaeology is that the site is already chosen. But the excavator entrusted with the recovery must make the decision before development whether what parts should be explored or what proportion of the whole site should be sampled. These decisions will be easier to make if as much research and preparation as time and resources allowed, are undertaken before. So the developers and contractors, whatever the nature of the project, will have their own agenda from the outset, so that planning can be appropriately carried out and so that any request for variation of the developers timetable can be taken into account when requests are made for changes in plan because of unexpected finds.
