Page 90 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage
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the modelling of erosion and accretion. In addition to tracking formal data, it is very useful to involve the expertise and local knowledge of fishermen, pilots and divers. Factual establishment of the site’s current condition and environment, including exact depth and exposed length and width is the basis of the assessment. It is also the base line, which will provide a starting point for future research and monitoring.
Assessment of the potential to
obtain data
Each project should be executed in pursuance of project objectives. These may be purely scientific in nature, but they may also address site stabilization, consolidation or providing access. In any case, the project will imply data collection. In projects of excavation or limited intrusion, this implies some measure of destruction, although the process may be of a creative nature. After all, archaeological projects creatively produce knowledge.
The preliminary assessment should determine whether the objectives of a project can reasonably be expected to be met and are well-defined. An important aspect in this is whether or not the site allows for the collection of the data that is central to the project.
Under Rule 14, the incorporation of these questions in a preliminary assessment is specifically stressed. It is on the basis of this preliminary work that irreversible decisions on the future of the site will be taken. For the progress of research in a well- defined research agenda, it is justifiable to sacrifice
individual sites for a research excavation, and to enhance their significance by in- depth scientific publication. But one should do so with the adequate methods and relying on the sites that provide the best chance of collecting the necessary data,
The assessment of the potential to obtain data pertains to three questions:
• is the site likely to produce the data necessary to resolve the research question(s) at stake?
• are the proposed research methods and techniques adequate for providing that data?
• is any resulting damage proportionate to the
urgency of collecting this data?
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Preliminary work