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Wessex Archaeology
Portway House
Old Sarum Park
Salisbury
SP4 6EB
UK
Tel: 01722 326867
Fax: 01722 337562
Framework Archaeology is a Joint Venture agreement between Oxford Archaeology (OA) and Wessex Archaeology (WA) to provide archaeological services to BAA. Given the potential scale of some of BAA's projects, the joint venture enables Framework Archaeology to draw on the full resources of both OA and WA, including site staff, specialist managers, administrative support, and technical facilities. This combination of resources (totalling over 300 staff) considerably reduces risk for both our client and us, and provides Framework Archaeology with a wider skills base.
Framework Archaeology is committed to a particular archaeological philosophy developed by BAA's archaeological consultants, Gill Andrews and John Barrett. This is concerned with understanding how people inhabited past landscapes: archaeology as a study of people rather than deposits or objects. This approach is at the heart of the Archaeological Policy adopted by the BAA Main Board. Framework projects are thus academically driven but undertaken within a commercial environment. In order to fulfil the approach a Framework Archaeology recording system has been developed and is now in operation on all Framework Projects. It places great emphasis on interpretation in addition to recording, and developing a historical narrative as the site is excavated (Andrews, Barrett & Lewis 2000).
Between 1999 and 2004, Framework Archaeology undertook a series of large-scale archaeological excavations at Stansted Airport, Essex. These were undertaken in advance of redevelopment work within the Stansted Airport Limited landholding. The developments were designed to improve facilities for passengers or to augment the infrastructure of the Airport. The results of the archaeological excavations were published by Framework Archaeology in 2008 in the book entitled "From hunter gatherers to huntsmen: A history of the Stansted landscape"( Framework Archaeology Monograph No. 2.).