The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

The past in the present
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The European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage (revised) was opened for
signature in January 1992 in Valletta, Malta, by the Council of Europe (O’Keefe 1993). The UK
Government has yet to ratify the Valletta Convention, but once this is done, its clauses will
inform the future development of archaeological legislation in the United Kingdom. The definition
of archaeological sites in the convention is broad, including structures, constructions, groups of
buildings, developed sites, movable objects, and monuments of other kinds whether situated on
land or under water (Article 1). Emphasis is placed on the need to maintain proper inventories of
recorded sites; the information is subsequently used in the planning process to ensure wellbalanced
strategies for the protection, conservation and enhancement of sites of archaeological
interest.
At a national level, the main legislation is the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act
1979, amended for England by the National Heritage Act 1984. This legislation relates to sites or
monuments that are explicitly recognized as being of archaeological importance. Three such
classes of monument are defined: scheduled monuments, of which there are currently about
16,000 in England, 5,300 in Scotland and 2,700 in Wales; guardianship monuments, of which
there about 440 in England, 330 in Scotland and 125 in Wales; and Areas of Archaeological
Importance, which are confined to five historic towns in England (Canterbury, Chester, Exeter,
Hereford and York). Apart from guardianship, where the objective of direct management is total
preservation of the site, the other designations are methods of controlling change as a means of
achieving preservation. In the case of scheduled monuments, control is achieved through a
scheduled monument consent procedure, whereby permission is needed to undertake any kind
of works likely to damage the monument. Such permissions may be subject to conditions, including
the full archaeological investigation and recording of remains prior to works commencing.
Dealing with all these legal and advisory frameworks, together with numerous policy statements
issued by public bodies and interested parties, the process of decision making has become highly
complicated. Moreover, one of the
fundamental principles of
archaeological resource
management is that decision making
should be properly informed.
Accordingly, what has become
known as the ‘management cycle’
has developed as a consolidated,
repeatable, and widely applicable
system to guide the acquisition of
information and the decision making
process (Darvill and Gerrard 1994,
157). Figure 17.5 shows the
management cycle in schematic form
with eight main stages:
• Appraisal: define the problem or
issue. In the case of a
development programme, this
would first involve the definition
of the development site
boundaries and the nature and
scale of what was to be done.
Figure 17.5 Schematic representation of the management cycle applied to
archaeological situations.
Source: Timothy Darvill