Highways England admit they can’t afford to do it properly!

Professor Mike Parker Pearson has just repeated his contention that half a million artefacts may be lost to science as a result of the Stonehenge Tunnel Scheme. It is no idle claim, it is based on Highway England’s own revelation that in defiance of normal professional standards for research projects at Stonehenge (100% sieving of topsoil) they will only sieve a sample of between 4 and 14% because “100% sieving would take too long and prove too expensive!“.

In other words, they are saying they can’t afford to do it right! That, at least, we believe, but not the re-assurance from their spokesman Jim Hunter: “We are confident we can deal with the archaeology in an appropriate way …”

How can that be true? How can not sieving between 86% and 96% of the material dug up from the archaeological levels removed in the path of a mile of new dual carriageway be dealing with the archaeology in an appropriate way?