The painstaking process of archaeological post-excavation work can often take several years to complete. It is an immensely complex undertaking, involving collaboration by a vast array of specialists working in different teams. These include experts in stratigraphic analysis, who piece together different layers from sites to understand how they developed over time, and artefact specialists, whose expertise tells us the date of objects recovered from sites (e.g. pottery, flint, glass, metalwork…).

It is these people who help us develop our understanding of the chronology of a site. Their knowledge can tell us what objects were used for and how a site functioned socially and economically. Other specialists focus on organic material, and these paleoenvironmental experts can tell us how people interacted with domestic and wild animals, what crops were grown and how these changed over time, and what the environment looked like in the past. Such experts include those with specialisms in animal remains, human remains, archaeobotany (ancient plants), snails, geoarchaeology (ancient soils), pollen and insects. 

Bringing order to the widely varied work of all these specialists requires expert research management, and interpretation abilities. It is a real skill to be able to coordinate and condense the highly detailed technical work of specialists into an explanation of a site that the wider public can understand and resonate with. The field of Archaeological Post-Excavation Management is therefore a specialism in its own right. 

Archaeological Post-Excavation Managers oversee the various analyses undertaken by the collaborative team of technical specialists. They have a key role in designing and delivering the outputs of the post-excavation work, which usually take the form of publications, sometimes in books, journal or magazine articles, and increasingly in sophisticated and innovative digital products, such as virtual site tours and reconstructions. 

The work undertaken by various specialists during archaeological analysis generates a huge quantity of data, and this, together with the physical material recovered during an excavation, forms what is known as the archaeological archive. Traditionally, the archive would be deposited in a museum. While this is still usually the case for the physical remains from an excavation, the digital records created during post-excavation analysis have the potential to be used in new and exciting ways. By using modern data management techniques and innovative technology, we can harness immensely complicated and sometimes disparate datasets to bind this complex information together, creating new narratives and work with the material more efficiently than ever before.   

Archaeology for Now, and for the Future

So why do we do all this work, and why is it important?

The wider public interest in history is arguably reason enough to create stories about our past from the evidence available to us, but archaeological research also informs our relationship with the future. The results of some of the specialist palaeoenvironmental work outlined above have, provided invaluable information about the way that climate has changed over time, which is of critical importance for use in future models of climate change. While it deals with the past, the archaeological analysis undertaken by our teams of specialists is therefore inextricably associated with our well-being, both in the present and in the future. 

Our Cultural Heritage and Archaeology team is one of the biggest in the UK. We support clients with historic environment expertise throughout a project’s life cycle – from pre-planning advice and building recording through to post-excavation and archiving.  
Get in touch with the team to see how we can support your next infrastructure project.