Stephen Austin wrote in response to my comments:

>>You wrote:
>The second was to sample the "historic refuse deposit" adjacent to the
canal which had been identified by the initial survey.  Unfortunately, that
survey failed to recognize or learn that this was a municipal landfill or
that it dated to the early 20th century.<

>>Does that mean that you would rather not have excavated the (later)
landfill?


No that doesn't mean we would rather not have excavated the later landfill.
It means that (a) it would have been nice to have known it was 20th c.
instead of the early 19th c. tag it was given (affects the kind of research
questions you think you will be addressing) and, more importantly (b)
identification as a landfill as opposed to "a historic refuse deposit"
might have generated a more appropriate excavation approach than the one we
were stuck with (for example, more smaller units throughout the extent of
what turned out to be a large deposit, rather than 3 units of a set size).

Actually I have no problem with 20th century refuse excavation--I wrote my
thesis on that type of material.  What I have a problem with is going into
an excavation project with inadequate site assessment information and an
inflexible scope.  And I know we have all had that problem--sometimes even
using our own site assessment data.

                                Lucy Wayne