Archaeology on a private farm

thomur

I have a small farm in Clare, and thanks to one of the previous posts here, who mentioned the aegis/archaeology site, I see that there is a crannog off the shoreline I have on a lake. There is also a fulacht fia, and a few unusual stones(I think) on my land.
My question is, as I have always had an interest in history/archaeology, can I get a archaeologist to look at these privately. This would be purely for my own interest and any information it might bring up.

slowburner

Yes you can. There is nothing stopping you from engaging an archaeologist to survey your land and the archaeology on it.
However, you should not expect that anything will be excavated. Excavation is tightly controlled and only takes place if there are genuine reasons.

Simon.d

slowburner wrote: »

Yes you can. There is nothing stopping you from engaging an archaeologist to survey your land and the archaeology on it.
However, you should not expect that anything will be excavated. Excavation is tightly controlled and only takes place if there are genuine reasons.

If funding is in place for an excavation, how does the state decide to go about granting such a licence? Is there a list of criteria involved?

I understand the idea of preserving things in the ground for the improved archaeological techniques of the future, but at the same time, waiting brings with it the inherent risk that much if not all the archaeological evidence will be lost (either through vandalism, livestock, accident or some other action) by the time our future society gets round to investigating (if it ever does)..

We have a massive surface area of archaeology to investigate on this island, and I would have thought that it would be prudent to apply the best available techniques to at least a portion of a virgin site whenever resources were made available...

slowburner

Simon.d wrote: »

If funding is in place for an excavation, how does the state decide to go about granting such a licence? Is there a list of criteria involved?

I understand the idea of preserving things in the ground for the improved archaeological techniques of the future, but at the same time, waiting brings with it the inherent risk that much if not all the archaeological evidence will be lost (either through vandalism, livestock, accident or some other action) by the time our future society gets round to investigating (if it ever does)..

We have a massive surface area of archaeology to investigate on this island, and I would have thought that it would be prudent to apply the best available techniques to at least a portion of a virgin site whenever resources were made available...

It's important to bear in mind the principle that 'excavation is destruction'.
Excavation is something that can only be done once, so there has to be good reason.
In essence, there are only two good reasons - rescue archaeology (including development led archaeology) and academic enquiry.
So the answer to your first question is yes, there are set criteria which a license applicant must fulfill.
Of paramount importance in this, is the calibre/qualification of the applicant and this is usually assessed at interview.

It can be very frustrating to know that something lies buried and that an excavation would answer so many questions - but that's just something we have to live with.
If you look back the excavations carried out in the early days of archaeology there is a terrible sense of waste. Many sites and monuments were excavated using the best possible practice known at the time. Those archaeologists were confident that they were not doing any damage. Now we have an entirely different set of tools available that makes those early investigations look primitive and incomplete. Think how much has been revealed by pollen analysis, isotope analysis and the array of dating techniques available.
All the information that could have been gathered by these systems was lost the moment that first mattock broke ground. Those early excavations were mistakes and repeating mistakes is not something we want or should do.
There is no knowing what technologies will become available in future and consequently, we cannot know how we could damage the sources of information that lie buried.

randomperson12

owning archaeolgy on yourt farms cool all we have is 18th centure cottage buried in our field

randomperson12

i found clay pipes and pieces of a bottle in the ditch beside it