While it is important to have a public component of any major archaeological dig, it is equally important to have the technical component as well. As archaeologists, we should not assume that the sites we are excavating are limited to the research questions or techniques that we have available to us today. I am currently re-examining archaeological research done in southwestern Pennsylvania during the 1930s on Native American village sites-- something that I could not do without the availalbe field documentation and something that would be a lot easier if technical reports were available. I can ask research questions that were not thought of six decades ago or that the excavators did not have time or ability to address.
And, I have also made a point of bringing my research to non-archaeological audiences.
Bernard