Research Frameworks

We seek to secure a sustainable future for the historic environment. Research allows us to identify what is significant.                                        A Research Framework for London Archaeology the research agenda MoL/EH 

We then protect this significance by managing change in the historic environment through our advice on planning and conservation issues. 

Our understanding of London’s archaeological resource has been summarised in `The Archaeology of Greater London – An assessment of archaeological evidence for human presence in the area now covered by Greater London’. (Museum of London 2000), with gazetteers by period and distribution maps. Other overviews include `London under ground: the archaeology of a city’ (eds. I. Haynes, H. Sheldon & L. Hannigan 2000); `Aspects of archaeology and history in Surrey : towards a research framework for the county’ (eds J. Cotton, C. Crocker & A. Graham  2004). These form a basis for asking further questions of the past, and a Research Agenda was proposed in `A research framework for London archaeology’ (Museum of London 2002).

A  Historic Environment Research Strategy  for London is being prepared in 2008, that will help prioritise where efforts are expended, and to address current issues. This will complete the trio of documents that comprise the Research Framework. Research is an iterative process, investigations to answer one question will raise further questions, and these will feed back into the framework, a continuously updated and dynamic document.

The Thames Estuary’s archaeology was addressed in An Archaeological Research Framework for the Greater Thames Estuary  (eds. J. Williams & N. Brown 1999). This is being reviewed and revised in 2008.

Work in adjacent regions is also pertinent to Greater London, such as  SARF  - The Surrey Archaeological Research Framework; SERF - The South East Archaeological Research Framework, covering Kent, Surrey and East and West Sussex, in preparation in 2008, many of its supporting papers will be found on the website; the  Solent-Thames Archaeological Research Framework for counties to the west of London is in preparation; and East Anglian Archaeology >ALGAO East>Regional Research Framework, which is also being reviewed and updated in 2008.

^{(Last Updated: 11 Dec. 2008 Robert Whytehead)}