Strip map and sample is a method of archaeological excavation applied in the United Kingdom to preserve archaeological remains by record in the face of development threat. It involves machine stripping of an area, plotting observed features onto a site plan and then partially excavating those features (sampling).
Strip map and sample is undertaken when a site is to be destroyed by development and no satisfactory method of preserving archaeological remains in situ can be devised or adequate funding and time has not be factored into development project planning to allow for a full archaeological investigation.
Famous quotes containing the words strip, map and/or sample:
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“When I had mapped the pond ... I laid a rule on the map lengthwise, and then breadthwise, and found, to my surprise, that the line of greatest length intersected the line of greatest breadth exactly at the point of greatest depth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As a rule they will refuse even to sample a foreign dish, they regard such things as garlic and olive oil with disgust, life is unliveable to them unless they have tea and puddings.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)