Geoff carver wrote: problem here in germany (and possibly elsewhere in europe)
is that too many people are still excavating things like medieval town centres
using arbitrary levels!!! they don't know about stratigraphic methods because
they only know what their professors told them, and the professors only know
about profiles and  plans a la Mortimer Wheeler
  >>
Well they clearly only looked at the pickies and didn't read Wheeler as
despite all his faults he (and the usually forgotten first Mrs Wheeler) and
the underated Kathleen Kenyon developed modern stratigraphic excavation as we
know it. The basic principles were established by the 1940s. However, modern
urban archaeology was an indirect German invention- as Grimes, Noel Hume and
Oswald developed it on London bomb sites- so they should no better (Actually
I'm normally a good European but it is the World Cup- that's football my
American friends).
paul courtney, Leicester, Uk