Review Article

Recent publications in roads archaeology

Jay Carver
Scott Wilson Heritage (London)
6-8 Greencoat Place, London, SW1P 1PL, UK
(Email: jay.carver@scottwilson.com)

Books Reviewed
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OLIVIA LELONG & GAVIN MACGREGOR. The lands of ancient Lothian: interpreting the archaeology of the A1. xxviii+306 pages, 198 illustrations, 10 tables. 2008. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; 978-0-903903-41-7 hardback £35 (Fellows £30).

ED DANAHER. Monumental beginnings: the archaeology of the N4 Sligo Inner Relief Road (NRA Scheme Monographs 1). xvi+183 pages, numerous b&w & colour illustrations. 2007. Dublin: National Roads Authority; 978-0-9545955-4-8 paperback & CD-ROM.

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FRASER BROWN, CHRISTINE HOWARD-DAVIS, MARK BRENNAND, ANGELA BOYLE, THOMAS EVANS, SONIA O'CONNOR, ANTHONY SPENCE, RICHARD HEAWOOD & ALAN LUPTON. The archaeology of the A1(M) Darrington to Dishforth DBFO road scheme (Lancaster Imprints 12). xxiv+452 pages, 394 b&w & colour illustrations, 141 tables. 2007. Lancaster: Oxford Archaeology North; 978-0-904220-39-1 hardback & CD-ROM £25.

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Three important publications have emerged recently reporting the results of archaeological field investigations undertaken in connection with road building programmes in Ireland (Danaher), Scotland (Lelong & MacGregor) and England (Brown et al.).

As with pipeline projects, railways and other large scale development, research programmes in roads archaeology have tended, perhaps truthfully through a lack of an effective project design, to produce slightly encyclopaeidic grey literature-style publications listing the results of many minor investigations alongside one or two truly significant finds. As a result, a researcher would often have to purchase a doorstep volume at a hefty price just to get the published report on 'that' key site or specialist report.

In the late 1990s, as technology began to provide alternative presentation and dissemination options, the profession at the time called for more synthesis of development-related rescue archaeology (see for example Powlesland et al. 1998; Gaffney & Exon 1999; Gray & Walford 1999; Wickham-Jones 1999; Jones et al. 2001), more integration and discussion of stratigraphic, artefactual, environmental and methodological datasets and less emphasis (in printed form at least) on publication of entire post-excavation technical reports. The vision was that a new breed of integrated '[non?-] academic' publications would be widely distributed in print and perhaps online, whilst the serious researcher would have access to a rich archive of primary fieldwork data, specialist reports and technical datasets in a digital format, envisioned initially as held on accompanying disk and later as a permanent online archive as with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (see http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/projArch/ctrl/) or Heathrow Terminal 5 (see http://www.framearch.co.uk/t5/evidence/).

The three books under review all have large infrastructure development as their raison d'être and the authors and funding bodies must be congratulated for getting first class archaeological research into the public domain relatively quickly (each volume represents work undertaken between 2001 and 2006), in an accessible, integrated form. Each book pre-supposes a mixed audience of professional, academic and interested public, and can be characterised as readable and well illustrated (Lelong & MacGregor in monochrome, Danaher and Brown et al. in full colour).

Of note too is the clear and favourable climate of collaboration between government agencies, the commercial services sector and the university-based academics who have collaborated to produce research results of lasting significance. This perhaps is still lacking outside these large nationally funded projects; in the wider development sector we are still seeking collaborative ways of bringing the many thousands of private development-related project results into comparable formats, certainly in England.

Persuading private sector developers of the value of an open and collaborative approach to post-excavation will no doubt become easier when the legacy of these current publications sinks in, particularly if it encourages local and national government agencies and those holding public funds to contribute both commercially and professionally rather than just as regulators. Developers, especially those in the fully private sector who have contributed significant sums to the evaluation and investigation of remains, still require convincing that their funding remit extends to 'research' particularly where that necessitates the expansion of analysis beyond their tightly perceived boundaries. In good times positive results are sometimes possible but, with increasingly squeezed margins, recognising the true value of the research output of developer-funded investigation will become harder and harder. Whilst archaeologists must continue to persuade each developer that the research output is in fact the only purpose in investigating archaeological remains in the first place, the mere term remains suspect in most if not all project development teams. The public sector, on the other hand, must demonstrate pragmatism through encouraging synthetic publication opportunities to overcome this - this requires a financial and resource commitment from that sector.

Road projects have several characteristics: by definition they are linear samples, random in nature, multi-period and producing diverse results. Investigators are faced with choices over how to analyse and present an often disparate dataset. In some cases that may consist of extremely large datasets which have multiple research opportunities interleaved within. What are readers looking for and how do they want to access data derived from development-led investigations? How are investigators treating the research opportunity deriving from these projects and what is the extent and quality of collaboration taking place? Can the research deriving from these random sample projects really compare and contrast with more question-led, specific, regional research being undertaken by others? Or are these projects now the vanguard of new investigations in the UK and Eire? Research requires thorough discussion of method and a recorded project design. Evidence needs to be available for interrogation. Do these publications have the potential to become a gateway for future research by others?

South-east Scotland

Lelong and MacGregor report on the results of excavations at 11 sites investigated between 2001 and 2004 in south-east Scotland. The authors have adopted a high quality monochrome print hardback format designed for longevity on the shelf. The book provides a fully integrated and detailed account aimed at both the archaeological community and a non-specialist audience keen to appreciate the historic development of the East Lothian landscapes. To meet the needs of these two audiences the book focuses on interpretative accounts and discussion arranged in chronological progression through prehistory, backed up by text boxes providing highly accessible discussion of some key technological contexts for the themes and developments revealed by the work. These provide a real insight into the specialist studies and an introduction to the evidence supporting the interpretations as well as key references for taking an issue further. This approach, also helped by some extremely effective reconstruction drawings by David Hogg, brings the volume within reach of non-specialists in an informative and attractive way. The content is essentially tripartite: background to the investigations, physical, environmental and regional archaeological context are given in Chapter 1; Chapters 2-7 contain the detail of the excavations in period-based syntheses of the project area; Chapters 8-10 put the finds into context drawing on regional and national comparatives and addressing key research themes.

In terms of the technological revolution referred to above, the publication style is traditional. It uses high quality excavation photographs, plans, sections and artefact line drawings to represent the primary excavation evidence alongside the interpretative narrative. Unlike the other two volumes discussed here there has not been an attempt to bring the specialists studies and technical fieldwork reports in direct reach through digital means (CD-ROM or web-based archive). There is only passing reference to the project reconnaissance and evaluation phase - perhaps the key objective of a discussion on method - and no detailed discussion of the evaluation and data structure reports. From a Cultural Resource Management (CRM) perspective, access to the desk-based reports and site reconnaissance and evaluation reports are an important element in understanding the development of the project design and significance of the end result. The authors have however provided a summary of specialist artefact and environmental work that supports the interpretative narrative and a list of reports is provided in Chapter 12. The site archive can be accessed through the National Monuments' Record (NMR) of Scotland via the conventional highway rather than the web. Given the relative ease of digital dissemination through the web today this is a slight shame, offset however by the quality of the published primary evidence and integration of the results.

Ireland

Ed Danaher's book is the first in an expected series of detailed publications to emerge from the Irish National Roads Authority (NRA) Scheme Monograph Series. The Scheme series follows on from the NRA Monograph Series 1-4 which provided the project design background and interim results on investigations undertaken by the NRA since 1994 (for interim results on the N4 Sligo project, see Monograph 2).

The book reports on 30 investigations completed as part of the road scheme project. The results are presented in a highly accessible and well integrated synthesis. The key achievement of the monograph is, in my view, that it discusses the findings firmly within the local and regional context, drawing on many lines of comparable evidence, particularly for the prehistoric periods. This allows the reader to get a comprehensive idea of how these finds contribute to the regional research agenda. The introductory chapters provide a brief archaeological history of the landscape from early prehistoric to medieval periods. Chapter 3 focuses on fulachta fiadh and burnt stone mound material. Prompted by the numerous examples of this type of site from this project and the increasing numbers of discoveries arising from the stripping of large rural transects by the NRA and other developments, the author contributes hugely useful research to add to the burnt stone technology debate. A number of suggestions for further research are identified and here the book certainly succeeds in highlighting and directing the questions for continuing research in the region. In contrast to the period-based approach adopted by Lelong and MacGregor, Danaher has opted to report the results of the new excavations according to the modern township boundaries. These are to be found in Chapters 4-7 in the form of well illustrated summaries of the main results from the early Neolithic to the Middle Ages. The final chapter (8) draws the results together by period in a synthesis of the scheme as a whole.

Yorkshire

Brown et al. have produced a comprehensive publication of the results of over 60 investigations carried out between 2003 and 2006 during the construction of 58km of motorway improvements on the A1(M) in Yorkshire, England. Headline results include the Iron Age chariot burial and Beaker burial at Ferry Fryston, and a large Iron Age settlement near Micklefield. The book comes in two volumes. Volume 1 (printed and provided on the CD-ROM as print ready copy) is presented as a single project report. It starts with a detailed introductory chapter (1) that describes the project background and design and location of the archives. Four period-based chapters follow (chapters 2-5), where the results are discussed at landscape scale but combining the stratigraphic, artefactual and environmental data with the documentary, reconnaissance and evaluation data that preceded the main investigations. Three further chapters are devoted to a detailed discussion of the ceramic other finds and environmental evidence (chapters 6-8). The book ends with an interrogation of the results that usefully provides a post-excavation assessment of the initial project design and assumptions alongside a synthetic discussion of the results in their landscape and regional context. Volume 2 (CD-ROM only) contains a number of specialist reports supporting the discussion of the finds and environmental evidence presented in Volume 1. Significant attention is given to the conservation, metallurgical analysis and x-ray fluorescence of artefacts from the chariot burial and Beaker burial grave goods.

The emphasis of the book on 'interpreting the sites within their wider landscape' is certainly relevant to the wide geographic scope of the results and steps beyond the typical grey literature report. It is perhaps surprising that the CD-ROM has not been used to provide a more detailed account of the excavated evidence for each site.

Looking ahead

Overall, each of these books is a triumph on the road to fully integrated publication of public/private archaeological research. In particular they each demonstrate that the profession is developing successfully in two complementary directions: it is bringing local results to a wider audience and is keeping key regional and national research themes at the centre of the discussion.

It is to be hoped that online digital archives will play a greater part in disseminating the primary results of archaeological projects and the methods and techniques that lead to the eventual scope of the investigations. In terms of freedom of information and the contribution that these three projects can make to developing more sophisticated approaches to roads archaeology and providing researchers in the regions with direct access to primary digital archives, the investigators could have considered a more comprehensive approach. Online archives offer several advantages over printed books with or without supporting CD-ROMs. Important among these is continued access through incorporating software migration into the archive. A concern for CD-ROM only publication is the possibility that the data formats become unreadable within a few years, and that the disks become separated from the hard copy volume! Digital online archives, attached to national initiatives such as, in the UK, the Archaeological Data Service (ADS) and perhaps increasingly those developed to enhance regional Historic Environment Records (HERs) and archive research centres will ensure that primary data, in highly usable digital formats will become the norm and publications can be left to meet the many and various audience needs as a vehicle for keenly priced and highly informative syntheses.

If archaeologists involved in development-related research can look closely with public bodies at the cost benefits of permanent digital archiving of primary data alongside the dissemination of synthesised reports, the true impact of the investments made by the funding bodies will be realised. Not just in archaeological knowledge but in providing key methodological data to promote training, professional development and ultimately a more valuable return for those we persuade to fund archaeological investigation in the first place through more effective project designs.

References


Oxbow books