The archive and deposition section of an evaluation

The archive section of an archaeological field evaluation report is the part most often written last and challenged first. It has to say what the archive consists of, what has been selected for retention and why, where it will be deposited, on what terms, and when. An archaeological archive deposition arrangement that has not been agreed with a receiving museum before the fieldwork started is the commonest reason a condition stays open years after a site is occupied.

Reviewers look for three things: a named receiving body, a selection rationale, and evidence that the digital material will still be readable in twenty years.

What the archive consists of

An archive is more than the finds. It has three components, and each has different storage, conservation and ownership implications.

The documentary record covers context sheets, registers, section and plan drawings, survey data, photographs, the written report and the correspondence that establishes what was agreed. The material record covers artefacts, ecofacts, environmental samples and any residues from processing. The digital record covers survey files, geophysical data, photographic files, database exports and the report itself in an archival format.

Ownership matters and is frequently misstated. Title to finds normally rests with the landowner rather than the archaeological contractor or the developer, so a transfer of title agreement is needed before anything can be deposited. Treasure is dealt with under its own statutory process and is not part of this arrangement.

Selection and retention decisions

Selection is an expected part of the process rather than an optional one, and the published toolkits for selecting archaeological archives set out how to reach defensible decisions. The point is to retain what has research, educational or display value and to discard, by agreement, what does not.

The section should record:

• the selection strategy applied, and who agreed it
• categories of material retained in full, sampled, or discarded
• the reasoning for each category, referenced to research potential rather than convenience
• the method of disposal for discarded material
• confirmation that the receiving body agreed the strategy

Sampled retention is common for bulk building material, unstratified animal bone and post-medieval ceramics, and it is the sort of decision that has to be recorded at the time. Reconstructing a selection rationale afterwards is unconvincing and occasionally impossible.

One more point that reviewers raise. The strategy should distinguish between material discarded on site and material discarded after assessment, because the two involve different decisions by different people. On site discard of, say, modern demolition rubble is a judgement made by the site supervisor against an agreed protocol. Discard after specialist assessment follows a reasoned recommendation, and both need recording with the date and the person responsible.

Museum agreement before fieldwork begins

This is the practical heart of the section. Museum storage capacity in England is constrained, and a number of museums have closed to new archaeological deposits or accept them only on restricted terms.

So the written scheme of investigation should name the intended receiving museum, record that its collecting policy has been checked, and state that an accession number or deposition agreement has been obtained or applied for. Where no museum will accept the archive, the position has to be stated openly and an alternative long term arrangement proposed, with the council's archaeological adviser involved in agreeing it. That is a better outcome than a report which promises deposition that nobody has agreed to.

Deposition also costs money, often charged by the box or by linear metre of shelving, with conservation costs on top for unstable material. Those costs belong in the project budget from the start, and the developer pays them. The relationship between this stage and the field work is set out in our note on the archaeological field evaluation.

Digital data and long term readability

Digital material fails differently from paper. Proprietary formats become unreadable, storage media degrade, and file naming conventions that made sense to one team mean nothing to the next.

The section should state the formats used for each data type, preferring open and well documented formats for long term preservation, and name the repository that will hold the digital archive. It should also record the metadata standard applied, because an archive nobody can search is not usable.

Where survey data, geophysical results or photogrammetric models form part of the evidence, they need depositing with enough documentation to be reinterpreted, including coordinate system, instrument, processing steps and any corrections applied. A greyscale image without its underlying data is a picture rather than a record.

Public reporting and the online index

A field evaluation is expected to reach the public record through two routes: the local historic environment record, which holds the results for future planning decisions, and the national online index of archaeological investigations, which registers the project and links to the report.

Completing that index record is usually a condition of deposition and sometimes a condition of the planning permission. It is quick to do and easy to forget, and its absence is an obvious gap when a reviewer checks whether a project was properly completed.

Publication beyond that is proportionate to the results. Most evaluations are adequately served by a report in the historic environment record and the online index. Results of wider interest justify a note or an article, and the decision on which applies is one for the archaeological adviser rather than the developer. Where recording of standing structures forms part of the work, the deposition arrangements follow the same logic, as the Historic Building Recording page describes.

Timescales and who pays

Post-fieldwork work takes longer than clients expect. Finds processing, specialist assessment, conservation of unstable material, archive preparation to the receiving body's standards, deposition and the index record together commonly run to many months after the machines leave site.

Three consequences for a programme:

1. The archaeological condition will remain open after occupation unless the timescales are built into the project plan.
2. Specialist availability is not guaranteed, particularly for conservation and for some material classes.
3. A museum's own accession process adds time after the archive is physically ready.

Price it as a stage rather than as a line item. An evaluation quoted with fieldwork and reporting but no allowance for conservation or deposition is an underpriced evaluation, and the shortfall lands at the moment the developer least wants it.

And agree who holds the archive in the interim. Contractors go out of business, and an archive sitting in a commercial store with no accession agreement and no funded storage is at real risk. Naming the interim holder, the storage location and the funding arrangement in the report closes that gap.

Conditions that require archive evidence

Councils increasingly word archaeological conditions to require confirmation of deposition rather than only the submission of a report. Read the condition carefully, because the trigger for discharge may be the deposition receipt or the index record rather than the report itself.

Ask the archaeological adviser to confirm discharge in writing once each element is complete, and keep the accession number, the deposition receipt and the index reference with the property records. A purchaser's solicitor will ask for them, and finding them five years later is harder than it should be. The report types by category page shows how the archaeological documents relate to one another across a project.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; archive selection and deposition should be agreed with the receiving body and the local planning authority's archaeological adviser. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required.