Thirty Years of Monitoring in England — What Have We Learnt?

Abstract

Over the last thirty years, over sixty separate episodes of monitoring waterlogged archaeological sites have been carried out in England. This paper lists these projects, summarizes basic information about them, and reviews what we have learnt over these last thirty years. Recommendations are given to help improve future monitoring projects. In particular, it is suggested that more work is needed on assessing the state of preservation of a site before monitoring is considered; that a proper project design needs to be developed at the outset of the work; and that more thought should go into deciding why monitoring is needed for a given site, including identifying mitigation options that can be initiated if monitoring data suggest optimum conditions for survival are no longer being maintained.

Keywords:

• monitoring
• waterlogged deposits
• site preservation
• mitigation

Notes

1 References for sites reviewed in this paper are given in Table 1. Where no reference is given in the Table, material discussed in the paper is drawn from questionnaire responses and follow up discussions with those involved.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jim Williams

Jim Williams is the English Heritage science advisor for the East Midlands. He is interested in most aspects of preservation in situ research and policy, particularly preservation assessment, groundwater monitoring, and construction impacts on archaeological sites, in particular piling.

Correspondence to: Jim Williams, English Heritage, 44 Derngate, Northampton nn1 1uh, UK. Email: [email protected]