Chartered Institute for Archaeologists 2023

G U I DA N C E F O R C L I E N T S PROFESSIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY | A GUIDE FOR CLIENTS 2023 5 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT: A QUICK INTRODUCTION The historic environment is all around us. It has been shaped by people, interacting with the natural environment, over thousands of years. It is made up of a landscape of fields, routeways, villages, towns and cities, of buildings and monuments and the objects they contain. It ranges from the mega to the nano scale, from vast river systems to fragments of DNA. And it exists above and below ground and under water. Our environment is also changing rapidly. Environmental change is affecting where and how we live: our cities are growing and the way we travel and produce energy are being revolutionised through major infrastructure projects. We need our economy to grow, we face pressure for space, we are confronted by technological, cultural and social change, and at the same time we want to steward our natural and historic environment. Archaeology is the approach and processes by which we gather evidence from the historic environment, understand what this evidence means, and show how it can be used. It reveals how people have created and reacted to environmental and other changes. It shows how they adapted where and how they lived to meet the opportunities and challenges those changes brought. Some strategies and some places have succeeded; others have not. We can learn from them. The opportunities to undertake archaeology and engage with the past are many, but all successful projects depend on good planning and a staged approach. An important step is field evaluation , where assessments of what might be encountered are tested on the ground. In the development process, it can take place at RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) stage 2 (architectural concept design), and related stages in other control frameworks for construction, environmental impact assessment and archaeology. Field evaluation frequently supports pre-planning consultation or a planning application; for infrastructure projects, it may contribute to a more detailed understanding of a chosen site or route. It guides a developer on design options and gives a planning authority the information necessary to reach a determination. It may be a staged process rather than a single event, and it can involve a wide range of intrusive or non-intrusive fieldwork techniques, but its purpose is always to prospect for archaeological features, structures, deposits, artefacts or ecofacts. Establishing presence or absence is insufficient. If archaeological remains are present, field evaluation defines their nature and extent. It enables, or contributes to, an assessment of their significance in a local, regional, national or international context. The work will result in the preparation of a report and a stable, ordered, accessible archive. Buckland Abbey, Devon: the masonry walls provide visible evidence of a rich history, including medieval phases of construction, its destruction in the dissolution, and successive phases of reconstruction from the 16th to the 20th century. ©Jonathan Taylor