How was a research design written without testing having been done on the site. Testing is the procedure where you look and see what you have. If you didn't know what you had, not only how did you write a research design - why was it excavated. Testing is a very important part of the process, which too many people pass over. Additionally if the research design stated it already know what the site was, excavation was not necessary either. Yes flexibility is very important. I would reiterate that testing is more important.

Diane Dismukes

>>> Paul Courtney <[log in to unmask]> 11/12/99 11:07AM >>>
In the 1980s one of the most important site ever dug in Britain was the
site of West Cotton at Raunds. The research design said it was a
secondary medieval peasant settlement among a landscape of villages
created in the late Saxon period. the settlement turned out to several
centuries later than expected and was occupied by rich late medieval
peasants with barns and malt kilns. It overlay a late Saxon and medieval
manorial site with hall and a Norse-style mill. Underneath that was a
complex prehistoric ritual landscape. The original research design
proved to be pretty useless from the instant the turf was removed.
Perhaps this just reflects the multi-priod complexity of European sites
with structures or the fact that large-scale open-area excavation shows
up structural complexity while digging it as opposed to afterwards.
However, of the 50 plus sites I have dug on from volunteer to director
none has produced just what the original research design expected. There
was that deserted medieval village which produced a church on the last
afternoon etc etc. Research designs are OK but have to be infinitely
flexible or they are just as much a threat to the archaeology as
insidious a the developer's bulldozer. If not you will only find what
you look for- in which case why bother digging it in the first place.




In message <[log in to unmask]>, Diane Dismukes
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>I happen to agree with Jake - the why is the reason I do what I do. However that
>is not the case with everyone and therein lies the difference of theory. We all
>come to our profession with a phenomonology that dictates what we are interested
>in. In effect we all work from an abdabpted paradigm whether we have defined it
>or not, whether it fits one of the prescribed anthropological theories or not.
>It is always somewhat shocking to me when someone is not interested in the why
>but rather more interested in the what. They don't care why the group worshiped
>the badger, but are more interested in the Badger Ceremony, the Badger Clan
>organization or the Badger Pipe Cults use of different herbs for smoking. These
>people work from a different theoretical perspective than I do and so they ask
>different questions and seek different truths. I ask why and they ask what or
>how.
>
>The units you open and the statistics you use are governed by the question you
>are interested in finding the answer to. I personally think you should know what
>that question is before you go into the field and I think you call that your
>research design. Your research design will dictate your scope of work. So in the
>end it all comes full circle, the theoretical perspective from which you work
>dictates the questions you ask up front and has a big effect on the information
>you end up with at the conclusion - and that works for both archeology and
>history.
>
>I could go on and on but I have probably gotten myself in trouble already.
>
>Diane Dismukes
>Wholly my opinions and representative of noneother.
>
>>>> Jake Ivey <[log in to unmask]> 11/11/99 08:31AM >>>
>     Morgan and all:
>
>     Yes, the "why" is an implicit question you ask of the records, but we
>     were talking about a hierarchy of "fact."  Structures found in the
>     ground are facts (if you're sure you have a structure, that is) -- and
>     if a document described them and allowed you to find them, you can say
>     that the document told you the truth.  The next level up, material
>     culture information in the records, creeps into the area that Ned was
>     talking about: you don't know who actually wrote the records or what
>     their agenda was.  You assume that a group of internally consistent
>     records is telling you something like a truth, if you can work out a
>     hypothetical reality that ties them together, but you always keep in
>     mind that you could wake up tomorrow with a completely different
>     hypothetical construct that fits those records.  Or the discovery that
>     the whole set is a forgery -- although this isn't likely.
>
>     Making that hypothetical construct from the array of data is where
>     your personal theoretical basis for historical research will be most
>     obvious.  Whereas your archaeological theoretical basis will show up
>     in other areas, such as your pattern for deciding where to open the
>     next unit when you're in the field, or which way to go with the
>     statistical analysis when you're in the lab.
>
>     "Why" is way on down the road of hypothesis, and depends on so many
>     other assumptions about the records that in many cases it would be the
>     first to change with the discovery of a new document that pertains to
>     your site, or the recognition that one you had and dismissed actually
>     refers to your place.  Still, we all have to offer our best
>     interpretation of why a site was there, why it changed, why it was
>     abandoned.
>
>     Jake

Paul Courtney
Leicester UK