ABSTRACT
One of the commonest questions an excavation director is asked by members of the public is ‘how do you know where to dig?’ In most urban situations this can be answered briefly by saying that an excavation almost anywhere inside or immediately outside the town centre is bound to produce archaeological discoveries, since the place has probably been intensively occupied for 1,000 years or more. It must be added, however, that, while there are bound to be some areas which are more interesting than others, archaeologists cannot dig anywhere that takes their fancy Most urban archaeology today takes place on sites threatened with redevelopment, where the buried remains face destruction by new buildings, roadworks and so forth. In other words sites are, up to a point, chosen for archaeologists by factors beyond their control. It should be noted, in addition, that threatened sites are usually the only ones for which funds, from government or the developers themselves, are available. In recent years there have been very few sites in towns dug purely for research reasons, where there has been no time constraint and no immediate danger of destruction. While this can be frustrating from an academic point of view, it is likely that for the foreseeable future archaeologists will have enough to do to cope with threatened sites. It is arguable, moreover, that unthreatened sites should, if possible, be preserved for future generations who will probably have greater resources and better techniques than we do.
