Who Regulates Professional Standards in Archaeological Geophysics?
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-08-22

The first commercial archaeological geophysical surveys were conducted over 40 years ago for British Gas. A decade later, a few hundred surveys were being carried out annually and an article in the IFA’s Newsletter ‘The Field Archaeologist’ entitled ‘Professional Standards in Archaeological Geophysics’ (Gater 1990) raised concerns about the quality of some geophysical reports being produced. Since then, the discipline has progressed to become a multi-million-pound business; the aim of this paper is to visit the standards of work four decades later.
At the outset, the high quality of most reports generated should be acknowledged (and celebrated). However, this paper will argue that recognised standards are still not being adhered to, even by CIFA Registered Organisations. Using examples of publicly available geophysical reports, shortfalls will be highlighted, including: badly processed data and erroneous interpretations. The paper poses the question: ‘who scrutinises a specialist report?’ and raises several contentious topics: ‘should geophysicists have a vested interest in any follow-up excavations?’; ‘why in 2019 do archaeologists still use rigid 2%-4% sampling trench schemes?’; ‘is Strip, Map &Sample really the best way to evaluate a site?’

John Gater (SUMO Geophysics Ltd)