All commercial or planning-led archaeological projects are expected to prepare and deposit an archive in a secure and publicly accessible repository to ensure that it is available as a resource for future research. This is also best practice to prepare an archive for any local community archaeology groups working within the county.
The archives deposited with us are required to be prepared to the standards set out in our archive deposition guidelines.
To initiate the process of archiving a site in Cambridgeshire, we ask commercial archaeological units read our guidelines and email arch.her@cambridgeshire.gov.uk with the signed Transfer of Title form, signed copyright form and a metadata catalogue for each of the archives to be deposited.
Requirements for Post-Excavation Assessment
For fieldwork projects that are likely to produce a significant archive, CHET would normally require a Post-Excavation Assessment (PXA). In addition to the details of the post-excavation work, CHET requires a formal proposal for the archives to be submitted as part of the PXA.
Selection and retention of archive
We operate on a case-by-case basis for the approval of selection and retention strategies by archaeological units. We ask the commercial archaeological units send us their proposed discard strategies per archive for approval. The decision will be based upon the specialist’s recommendation, comparable sites on the CHER and future proposed fieldwork.
CHET supports use of the CIfA Toolkit for Selecting Archaeological Archive.
Digital archives
Projects with a digital archive element are expected to deposit this with a publicly accessible repository with CoreTrustSeal status such as the Archaeological Data Service.
