Archaeology
From Protecting our Environment
Our region is extremely archaeologically rich, with over 4,000 scheduled ancient monuments, 3 world heritage sites and over 40,000 listed buildings. In addition to these legally protected sites, local councils hold details on tens of thousands of archaeological sites of local or regional importance. As part of our environmental screening process, capital schemes which could affect buried archaeology or other cultural heritage are subject to consultation with the appropriate body (either English Heritage or the County Archaeological Officer). Where these consultations confirm we may have an impact and where we cannot reasonably avoid any remains, we can undertake a range of archaeological assessments and mitigation to minimise any adverse impacts on the historic environment.
The techniques which we use may include:
The techniques which we use may include:
- Desk Based Assessments - where all the known documentary evidence relating to the area affected by a scheme is evaluated to gauge potential impact.
- Non-intrusive evaluations – these may take the form of geophysical surveys, field walking or landscape assessments.
- Intrusive evaluations – this may include trial trenching or excavations of sections by specialists.
- Mitigation during construction – for example, an archaeological watching brief, where a specialist archaeological contractor is on site to monitor and record any features encountered during construction.
- Post excavation reporting – where we encounter significant archaeological remains, it is important to let the public and specialists know of our discoveries.
All of these techniques are undertaken by specialist archaeological contractors on our behalf working closely with our project teams, the County Archaeological Officers and, where relevant, English Heritage.
During 2006, we consulted County Archaeological Officers about the impact of over 250 schemes, leading us to undertake mitigation on over 35 projects. The results of all of our assessments and excavations are provided to the County Archaeological Officers to make available to the public through each authority’s Historic Environment Record.
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