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Avebury

Alexander Keiller's Avebury

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nigelswift N
nigelswift Jan 22, 2013 16:02:01
Replying to Rhiannon

Rhiannon wrote:
It's the precautionary principle. It's that we actually can't and don't know what those things might be. It's like if you spoke to a victorian antiquarian and asked them to not dig up the barrows because they were spoiling the stratigraphy and the carbon dating evidence and the chance of running some geophys over it. He couldn't imagine what you were talking about because to his eyes, he'd found a bit of charred bone and measured a skull's proportions and ooh there's a gold torc, what more would anyone want...........
It's that the 'resource' (ie all the archaeological information under the ground) is finite at Avebury. So yes you can dig (as they did at one part of the purported Beckhampton avenue) but you can only dig a bit at a time. You learn something this time. But you leave a bit left so people can learn stuff in the future. So yes, you can dig, you can 'restore' (provided you know what was originally there to restore it, I suppose) - but you don't take a unique and nationally (internationally?) important site like Avebury and dig it all up, restore it all up, at once.
Have you been reading my mind again? I'd only add 2 small points -

1. it is because of all you've expressed that I tried to say something early on in this discussion to the effect that anything that's done at Avebury has to be a compromise between what we naturally would like to see done in our time and what is left for the future to do better in it's time. A compromise being the only way such irreconcilable interests, those of us and those of posterity, can be eve be resolved.
2. it is why, for the same reason, EH's guff talks of sampling around 2.5% when investigating a site - or it might have been 5%, it's donkeys years since I read it. Anyway, the thinking is well established worldwide, eat only a bit of the pie else there'll be no unchewed pie left for the great grandchildren. And it's important to keep in mind "we" are the minority compared with the future so we ought to take a very modest slice in all fairness.

M Mustard
Mustard Jan 22, 2013 16:08:07
Replying to nigelswift

nigelswift wrote:
Rhiannon wrote:
It's the precautionary principle. It's that we actually can't and don't know what those things might be. It's like if you spoke to a victorian antiquarian and asked them to not dig up the barrows because they were spoiling the stratigraphy and the carbon dating evidence and the chance of running some geophys over it. He couldn't imagine what you were talking about because to his eyes, he'd found a bit of charred bone and measured a skull's proportions and ooh there's a gold torc, what more would anyone want...........
It's that the 'resource' (ie all the archaeological information under the ground) is finite at Avebury. So yes you can dig (as they did at one part of the purported Beckhampton avenue) but you can only dig a bit at a time. You learn something this time. But you leave a bit left so people can learn stuff in the future. So yes, you can dig, you can 'restore' (provided you know what was originally there to restore it, I suppose) - but you don't take a unique and nationally (internationally?) important site like Avebury and dig it all up, restore it all up, at once.
Have you been reading my mind again? I'd only add 2 small points -

1. it is because of all you've expressed that I tried to say something early on in this discussion to the effect that anything that's done at Avebury has to be a compromise between what we naturally would like to see done in our time and what is left for the future to do better in it's time. A compromise being the only way such irreconcilable interests, those of us and those of posterity, can be eve be resolved.
2. it is why, for the same reason, EH's guff talks of sampling around 2.5% when investigating a site - or it might have been 5%, it's donkeys years since I read it. Anyway, the thinking is well established worldwide, eat only a bit of the pie else there'll be no unchewed pie left for the great grandchildren. And it's important to keep in mind "we" are the minority compared with the future so we ought to take a very modest slice in all fairness.

I think we need to determine what we're specifically concerned with though. Because again, if I understand correctly, it's only medieval archaeology that's at risk. And I have to say, I *personally* rate the importance of the medieval archaeology at Avebury way below the advantage of restoring the stones.

R Rhiannon
Rhiannon Jan 22, 2013 16:32:54
Replying to nigelswift

Here we are Nigel, "the thinking is well established worldwide". Indeed. By lots of people. Wot know about archaeological methods. And have discussed it at length. Which is why me and thee would point the conclusions of their discussions out to other people having the discussion here. And personally I agree with that thinking as you can tell. And I don't think anyone's going to be allowed to do a Keiller and give a neo-neolithic makeover to avebury any time soon. or maybe even ever. Even if it'd lbe like brilliant and that or whatever.

Do you know what I think's vastly more likely, and that's the chance to wander round some futuristic virtual reality Avebury, like the one of our imaginations, but with added 3d goggles and the breeze in your face on top of the banks - now that is surely eminently possible in the next 10 years. In fact, maybe you could even wander round the real avebury, but with some weird overlay on your eyes so you didn't trip over but you could see both things at once.