The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 302 • Timothy Darvill
authorities (Larsen 1992). This can be referred to as the ‘recorded resource’. In England, for
example, the recorded resource is currently estimated at about 900,000 items, including stray
finds, place-name records, and many other relatively ephemeral pieces of information. About
600,000 items refer to what could be called archaeological monuments of one sort or another:
sites and structures (including ancient buildings) that contain archaeological deposits (Darvill
and Fulton 1998).
Part of the original resource and the recorded resource remains extant and is therefore able to
be investigated or looked at. That part of the original resource that is extant but not yet recorded
is the target for surveys and studies whose objectives involve the discovery of new sites. That
part of the original resource that has been destroyed but was recorded before being lost is now
known only through the records themselves, which range in quality from the very comprehensive
to the almost incomprehensible. The resource destroyed without record will never be known
about and is now completely lost. In large measure, how we see the archaeological resource and
how it will expand in future, comes down to its importance and how it is valued by society today.
WHY DO WE VALUE THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS?
Importance and value are two rather different things. The former applies differentially to particular
elements of the archaeological resource, in the sense that some things are regarded as more
important than others. In determining whether remains are of sufficient importance to merit
designation under the prevailing national legislation (see below), remains are judged against the
following criteria: survival/condition, period, rarity, fragility/vulnerability, diversity, documentation,
group value and potential, which can be systematically applied (Darvill et al. 1987). More general
measures of importance have also been suggested, for example the idea of ‘legibility’ in the case
of urban deposits (Carver 1996).
Value, however, is rather different as it relates to broad, socially defined perceptions of what
is good, right and acceptable (Darvill 1995). It applies not so much to individual sites or monuments,
but rather to the resource as a whole. In Britain, a series of value-sets relating to archaeological
remains can be seen developing
from medieval times onwards, but
in present-day society there are three
main value systems, or value
gradients as they are sometimes
known: use value, option value and
existence value. The following subsections
look briefly at each in turn.
Figure 17.3 Visitors at Stonehenge, Wiltshire.
Source: Timothy Darvill
Use value
This system is based upon the fact
that demands are placed upon the
archaeological resource by
contemporary society. The values
are based on consumption, even
though the act of consumption is
also creative. Society’s ability to use
the archaeological resource depends
on two things, both contributed by