The archaeological resource falls into three categories: the extant, buried or in situ resource; the residual or recorded resource, which has been destroyed but recorded, and the published and unpublished sources describing and interpreting it; and related resources from relevant, non- archaeological sources. Each is very different in nature, in management requirements and in research strategies, yet needs to be addressed within the same research framework.
The extant or in situ resource is that which still has physical existence, such as surviving archaeological deposits and buildings (Darvill and Fulton 1998). The in situ resource consists of the following:
In 1973, Biddle estimated that only approximately one-fifth of the archaeology of the City was still ‘reasonably intact’ (Biddle and Hudson 1973, 51). In retrospect this was clearly an understandable but significant underestimate of the remaining resource. It has also proved to be the case that more archaeology survived in the Greater London area than was thought likely in the 1970s.
These are a more easily quantifiable resource, their accessibility allowing better qualitative and chronological assessment. Although an extensive survey of the standing and demolished buildings of London has been undertaken by the Survey of London, published since 1900 in a series of 45 volumes plus 18 monographs on individual buildings, these cover only a fraction of London’s parishes and much of their potential for interpreting the history of London in combination with the archaeological evidence remains untapped. The work of the Survey now includes development of the capital, its architecture, buildings and topography.
The quantification of the in situ resource is normally only tackled on a site-by-site basis, in response to development proposals. The London boroughs each have Unitary Development Plans, many of which incorporate archaeological ‘constraint maps’ showing ‘priority zones’ of presumed high archaeological potential and/or, conversely, zones where archaeological deposits are presumed no longer to survive. The best mechanism to update such maps is still a matter of discussion.
While some towns and cities in England have developed Urban Archaeological Databases, with English Heritage’s backing, there is no single, up-to-date, relational database – the Greater London Sites and Monuments Record (GLSMR) is an incomplete and quite limited record – used in the research and management of London’s extant archaeological resource. There is a strong argument for producing updated maps showing the survival across London of deposits of different periods, perhaps in tandem with work to maintain the GLSMR, for it is by analysing what we know, that we can propose a framework for managing and researching the in situ resource (Carver 1996, 53). Naturally, such a framework will need to cope with the unexpected – either new discoveries or conversely sites where survival below ground turns out not to be as good as anticipated.
The recorded resource for London is biased: for a variety of reasons, the vast bulk of collected data and material relates to the very small geographical area that forms the historic core of London – the City of London, north Southwark and, to a lesser extent, Westminster. That bias has been addressed to an extent by the adoption of Planning Policy Guidance Note 16, Archaeology and planning (known as PPG 16), introduced in 1977 (DoE Circular 23/77), which substantially reinforced the treatment of archaeology as a material consideration in the planning process. PPG 16 (DoE 1990) has had an immense effect in terms of both the greater numbers of archaeological interventions and their wider geographical spread, with areas which had hitherto been overlooked now receiving routine attention. It is important to recognise developer-funded archaeology as ‘a research activity with an academic basis, the aim of which is to add to the sum of human knowledge’ (Wainwright 1978, 11, quoted in Thomas 1997, 138). Planning Policy Guidance Note 15, Historic buildings and conservation areas (DoE 1993), has had a similar though lesser influence for standing buildings.
The extraordinary discoveries and enormous leaps in understanding London’s archaeology during the last 20 years or so have been summarised in The archaeology of Greater London (AGL 2000), a comprehensive volume first commissioned by English Heritage from the Museum of London’s archaeology departments. It stands as a detailed statement of the sum of our knowledge and understanding in the 1990s. AGL addresses data from all 32 London boroughs and the City, and covers the period from c 300,000 BP to approximately AD 1800. It is in two parts, comprising an assessment of the resource in the form of descriptive chapters on the changing natural environment and ten common-usage chronological periods, with period maps and gazetteers of sites and finds, and reference material – including a summary of regional resources and a large bibliography.
A key part of the original purpose of AGL was to stimulate debate and to provoke questions. As Roger Thomas pointed out: ‘Paradoxically, the more quickly this volume … begins to seem in need of revision, the more successful it will have been in achieving its aims’ (AGL 2000, viii).
The gazetteers were published by the Museum of London (MoL) in order to facilitate access to the archive. These gazetteers list and summarise archaeological excavations in the capital and as such serve as a summary of and index to the London Archaeological Archive. Volume 1 covers excavations in the City of London 1907–91 (Schofield 1998), volume 2 excavations in Greater London 1965–90 (Thompson et al 1998) and volume 3 records of excavations by Professor Grimes in the City of London 1946–72 held by the Museum of London (Shepherd 1998). Further publications in this series, particularly on various classes of find, are planned.
English Heritage’s Greater London Archaeology Advisory Service (GLAAS) manages the GLSMR, which represents the regional index to all archaeological work ever undertaken in London. It is generally treated as the top level of enquiry. The GLSMR includes 75,000 records, divided more or less evenly between archaeological sites and listed buildings: 14,000 of the records relate to archaeological sites, of which 11,900 have a site code (the unique alpha-numeric code assigned to each new intervention). In 1999 alone the London Archaeological Archive issued 293 site codes for work ranging from small evaluations to complex urban excavations. A total of 320 site codes were issued in the year 2000, and 336 codes were issued in 2001. More recently, the work of the Thames Archaeological Survey has resulted in a baseline archaeological survey consisting of over 2000 records and 2000 images (Webber 1999).
With the opening of the LAARC in 2002, archaeology in London reached another major milestone. It faces a challenge as significant as that which it faced in 1972 (before the establishment of professional archaeological units in London) or again in 1990, with the advent of PPG 16. By the end of 2001, over 5200 sites had been archaeologically investigated in some way in the Greater London area, and the material currently housed in the London Archaeological Archive is, without doubt, the largest archaeological archive in Europe. Since the archaeological material in the Museum’s archive represents some 20% of the total English resource, it is clear that this archive is not just of overriding importance for the study of the capital and its hinterland, but also it is without question a collection of national importance.
The LAARC, curated by the Museum of London, contains over 120,000 boxes of material, including paper records, pottery, building materials, metal and composite finds, palaeobotanical and faunal remains, from thousands of archaeological interventions in the 32 London boroughs and the City of London. Most of the archives from these interventions remain unpublished save for gazetteer summaries.
Its future effectiveness as a research tool depends on actively enabling flexible access to and manipulation of the data (see Chapter 9, London Archaeological Archive access enhancement).
Material relating to the history and archaeology of London is also housed in the British Museum, and in private and borough Museums throughout London and elsewhere. Undoubtedly there is a great deal more dispersed material which remains undocumented. It is beyond the scope of this document to take full account of this material; nonetheless, it is hoped that the proposed framework will be compatible with research into this material, and that future access programmes may enable us to link currently scattered archives and material.
The recorded resource is of course supplemented by hundreds of reports and other sources, which are more or less accessible. Often, excavation reports are accused of being dull, inaccessible and encumbered with unnecessary detail (see Shanks and McGuire 1996, 80). Unpublished reports prepared by archaeologists for developers to submit to local planning authorities (so called ‘grey literature’) have their own, limiting, styles; they are designed for a specific purpose and it is dangerous to hold too high an expectation of them as interpretive reconstructions of history.
Nonetheless, it is common for archaeologists only to access archives when some form of interpretive report already exists (Jones et al 2001; B Sloane and S Mays, pers comm). Although we know very little about how and why archaeological archives are consulted, the impression is that they are under-used (Swain et al 1998, 45), and that the most used archives seem to be those that have been most fully published, such as Danebury, Hampshire (H Swain, pers comm).
A great deal of archaeological research, involving a very wide range of organisations and individuals, is in progress. Most of that research is driven by commercial imperatives, representing the post-excavation work following developer-funded field interventions; a smaller but equally significant body of synthetic research is being funded by grant-aid. Without over generalising, it is true to say that much of this work is done in relative isolation; it is rare for two organisations to collude to any great extent during post-excavation research – though it is more common for individual researchers to approach organisations for access to unpublished material and for that to result in a degree of collaboration. This is perhaps an inevitability, given the present legislative framework. Nonetheless, there are good examples of collaborative projects involving professionals and amateurs, students and field archaeologists, university researchers and commercial units (see Chapter 9). The success of collaboration is evidenced in the value that is added to the original, necessarily tightly defined project brief, by the results of work that the original brief could not have justified.
The key to encouraging more of this sort of collaborative work is seen as providing meaningful access to the archaeological archive. That is, not simply opening the doors to the archived material, but setting in place the infrastructure that allows people to explore and study that material. The Museum of London has embarked on a ‘minimum standards’ project, with funding from the Getty Foundation, which involves identifying and indexing all of the site archives held, and subsequently digitising this information for both on-site and remote computer access by individual researchers. This is part of the LAARC Access System, which is underpinned by the LAARC Management System (see Chapter 9).
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