On a number of points, Dutch archaeology is not doing well at all, the Council for Culture stated in an advisory report on the archaeological system in February. Every year archaeologists go out thousands of times to see what is in the Dutch soil and they carry out several hundred larger excavations. But that does not provide nearly as much knowledge as is possible. Because some of the clients are not interested in archeology at all and are certainly not interested in special finds. They only cost money.
All those thousands of times that archaeologists inspect the soil are paid for by ‘disruptors’: by project developers who want to erect buildings, companies that put cables in the ground and whoever else digs and builds in places where archaeological traces may lie. This is the result of the Treaty of Valletta from 1992, in which European countries agree to take good care of archaeological remains on construction sites, for example. The Netherlands decided to place the responsibility and the costs for this with project developers and other disruptors.
In itself, the Valletta Convention was a great gain for archaeology, everyone agrees. Before that, a lot of archaeological material disappeared unseen from construction sites, but those days are over: the more that is built, the more opportunities archaeologists have to deepen their knowledge.
Only some of the clients see that archaeologists would rather go than come, says Daan Raemaekers, professor of archeology at the University of Groningen and co-author of the advice of the Council for Culture: ‘For some builders, archaeological finds are just like soil pollution.’ Something annoying, so, that you would rather not find.
Search for the lowest quote
Clients like that want the job done cheaply. They have the advantage that this type of research is left to the market in the Netherlands. As a result, since the 1990s, archaeological companies have emerged that compete with each other. Builders can therefore search for the lowest quote. And certainly in times with few orders, companies want to offer their services too cheaply, says Raemaekers: ‘There is enormous pressure to offer cheaply.’
Marten Verbruggen also acknowledges this. He is director of Raap, one of the larger archaeological offices. ‘We try to ask a fair price, but if there is less work for a while and we have to pay our people, then we also feel pressure to settle for less.’
Low prices can lead to rush work, says Harry van Enckevort, archaeologist at the municipality of Nijmegen. As a result, some of the reports are only moderately useful for further scientific research, he believes. Van Enckevort looked at records of 165 excavations at construction sites, for example, which had yielded traces from the period 300-600 AD. Very little is known about the Netherlands in this period, from late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Among other things, Van Enckevort was interested in floor plans of houses, which archaeologists can deduce from piles and discolourations in the soil, and which show how people lived.
Changes in floor plans are also relevant. Variations in building plans over time may indicate that residents came from other regions, bringing their own building habits with them. On that point, of migration and new residents, many questions remain open for the period 300-600.
That is why Van Enckevort wanted to compare information from excavations. But that was disappointing: ‘Rarely did the reports contain good descriptions of floor plans.’ A result of rush work, he thinks.
Moreover, he saw that remarkably few metal objects had been found – fewer than he would have expected: ‘You have to conserve those kinds of objects and that costs money.’ Perhaps that is an incentive not to register them, he says.
Certification System
Raemaekers paints a more optimistic picture of work in the field. ‘I see archaeologists working hard at companies,’ he says, ‘and also put in their own unpaid time to do a good job.’ But, Raemaekers admits, nobody has a good overview of the quality of all those studies. ‘There has been a certification system for archaeological companies for a few years now, but it mainly concerns procedures: whether companies use the correct forms and whether the right person puts the check marks. That says little about the quality of research.’
Archaeologists are more united on another problem. This concerns unplanned finds that require additional research, and therefore extra money, which clients would rather not spend. Verbruggen van Raap explains how it works: ‘Before we start an excavation, we estimate what we can find. We make a quotation based on that, for the work on site and for the research that we have to do afterwards on finds.’ To cesspools, for example, which archaeologists search for pottery shards and food remains, for example, which provide a glimpse of daily life.
Unanalyzed in depots
‘It’s only when you start digging that you know what’s in the ground, and it can look very different from what you expected. In the city center of Utrecht we recently found twenty cesspools instead of the expected seven, so there was additional work. Sometimes clients simply refuse to pay for it. They have to, but the municipalities that should oblige them to do so seldom enforce it.’ Then finds end up unanalyzed in depots.
The systematic way of working that suits the construction world therefore clashes with the flexibility that comes with good science. Van Enckevort puts it this way: ‘A program of requirements must be drawn up for each research beforehand. It states what will be investigated and how. But if finds turn up from a period that is not in the program of requirements, they do not have to be included in a report.’ Although they can be interesting.
Even if the finds correspond to the expected periods, things can go wrong, Raemaekers explains: ‘Suppose you find something that looks like a burial pit of five thousand years old. There is no longer a body in it, but there is a discoloration in the bottom, possibly left behind by a corpse. Then you can do DNA research on the earth and that can make clear what kind of person or animal has been in the grave.’
Very interesting for archaeologists, who have been busy mapping prehistoric movements of people in recent years, on the basis of hereditary material. ‘But if it is not in the program of requirements, such a study will not be carried out. Then the report only says: possible burial pit. That is a shame, because there are all kinds of indications that prehistory was much more mixed than we often think. That all kinds of groups lived together and that the roots of the multicultural society go back a very long way. Now we are missing opportunities to investigate that.’
National Research Center
According to the Council of Culture, a national research center should be set up to overcome these kinds of problems, which can spend 5 million euros annually on additional DNA research, for example, or on a thorough analysis of interesting potsherds, pieces of flint and other finds. Raemaekers, who co-wrote the advice, thinks that this will improve a lot.
In addition, the Council recommends that all municipalities should have archaeologists – possibly shared with other municipalities – who check the programs of requirements and monitor investigations. Verbruggen and Van Enckevort do not expect much from this. According to Van Enckevort, inspectors at municipalities look too much at procedures and too little at real quality.
Verbruggen agrees. He wants to turn things around around the schedule of requirements, with which all investigations start. Now these are drawn up at the behest of the disruptor, who benefits from a limited and cheap program. ‘Make the municipalities clients. Then the programs of requirements are no longer just about money. Certainly not if there are knowledgeable people in the municipalities.’
Pipe cup in polluted soil
In blue overalls, archaeologists Mina Jordanov and Dorien te Kiefte of the Raap archeology office look at the ground behind the Utrecht Miffy Museum. That is going to expand and the soil under the planned construction turns out to be contaminated. So it has to be excavated, and because the museum is on historic ground, the archaeologists are watching on a February day. This is the kind of work the commercial offices do thousands of times a year, under the Valletta Convention: while others dig up soil with a backhoe, pull cables or dig holes for foundations, they search for archaeologically interesting material. They do ‘real’ excavations less often, but still about two hundred times a year.
In theory, the soil near the museum can yield a lot of interesting things, because one of the oldest parts of Utrecht stood here in the Middle Ages. But Jordanov and Te Kiefte are only allowed to view the excavated top layer. That is one of the basic tenets of the Valletta Convention: only to investigate what is otherwise destroyed. Deeper layers, which builders leave undisturbed, should also let the archaeologists rest. This way the underground tracks are preserved for posterity.
As a result, the finds on this day are limited to a remnant of – possibly – a tile, a metal plate, a piece of wall that probably dates from the 19th century, and a pipe bowl, probably from the 18th century.