Benno RIDDERHOF
(Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought.” (Sun Tzu)
During the period 1960-1985 large scale excavations were conducted in Holland (and in Europe). These excavations distinguish it selves with a large number of primary data (usually more than 800 pits, 4- to 6000 drawings, and an enormous amount of finds and written data). Examples of the large scale excavations are Dorestad, Druten and Voorburg (Forum Hadriani) scientific information from these digs are at best rudimentary. It usually consists of a simplified plan of the buildings reconstructed from the original drawing without any verification method.
None of the large excavations have been worked out. The reasons given are: the amount of data is too large, too much time has past for the dig to be worked out completely, it will take too long to research it, it is too complicated, the errors in the excavation are not solvable anymore etc. Even with the introduction of `computer archaeology` these arguments are still used.
Yet all of the “great excavations” from the `golden era of archaeology´ are used in modern analyses like “predictive modelling”. Reconstruction plans are presented here as definite plans. And from the results new plans are conceived for future archaeological research with wide implications. The fact that “non data” is being used is conveniently ignored. The consequences could be disastrous.
This paper will show that it is not impossible to work out large scale excavations in such a way and that they can and must be used in a verifiable way in modern archaeology. Using the Dutch examples of Dorestad and Druten, which have been processed during two courses at the Free University of Amsterdam this paper will present the method used for disclosing large-scale excavation and the results.
Keywords: Good basic education in Field Measurement Systems, Basic trigonometry, Autocad, Folk knowledge