Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (548 page)

A portable drawing board mounted horizontally on a tripod and used for surveying sites and earthworks by constructing a map directly onto paper or film attached to the board. With the board positioned directly above a survey station whose position is marked on the paper, an alidade is used to sight onto a target point. A line can then be drawn along the straight edge of the alidade and the distance from the survey station to the target point scaled off to fix its position. If measurement is not possible, then two survey stations a set distance apart can be used to
TRIANGULATE
the target point as the intersection of the two alidade-defined lines. Plane-table surveys have the distinct advantage that the surveyor can fill in detail by eye as the work progresses.

 
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Wooden box made from planks fixed together (rather than a hollowed trunk, for example) for the containment of a human corpse prior to and during burial. For Roman and later times plank coffins are usually recognized archaeologically from the pattern of nails found in the grave. Plank coffins made before the availability of nails can sometimes be recognized by the patterns of grave fill.

 
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Term applied to areas of a town or settlement where the streets and lanes are arranged in regular patterns, usually following some sort of grid. Such regular systems usually suggest that the area was set out according to a single unified plan rather than as a result of uncontrolled piecemeal development.

 
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A town that is established according to a pre-conceived plan which is set out on the ground in a formal way in order to structure the pattern of property development and the layout of roads, public buildings, and open spaces. In some societies towns are planned according to cosmological principles, in others a simple rectangular grid is used.

 
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A square or rectangular chassis, typically 1m by 1m internally, that is used on archaeological sites to assist with accurately planning features, objects, or structures. The chassis comprises rigid wooden, metal, or plastic sides that are drilled at regular intervals to allow a grid of criss-cross strings to be formed in the centre of the frame. Grids are typically 10 × 10cm or 20 × 20cm. Sophisticated planning frames may be equipped with extendable legs at each corner and a spirit level on two of the sides in order to level the frame and thus reduce
PARALLAX
. By laying the frame over an area that is to be planned or drawn, and locating the corners by offsets or triangulation, the planner can carefully observe the material to be drawn in relation to the grid within the planning frame and transfer this to scaled squares on the drawing board.

 
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Documents that set out the government's views and instructions on the way that each local planning authority in England should implement its responsibilities and duties in respect to town and country planning (spatial planning). Two such documents deal with archaeological matters: PPG15 issued in September 1994 entitled
Planning and the historic environment
, and PPG16 issued in November 1990 entitled
Archaeology and planning
. Both documents emphasize the interest and importance of various components of the historic environment and use the dual strands of the planning system to provide for the protection, conservation, and management of important sites, structures, and deposits and their setting. The role of
strategic planning
in balancing the needs of local communities and the preservation of archaeological remains is recognized, and the guidance recommends strong policies for protecting important sites. These policies will underpin what can be achieved through
development control
where the possible impact of individual proposals on archaeological materials is considered. Here the guidance provides an approach to the proper consideration of archaeological issues in which the prospective developer submits to the local authority the results of specialist studies (desk-based assessment and/or field evaluation or environmental impact assessment). The guidance places a responsibility on the local authority to have due regard to the preservation of archaeological deposits which are considered to be of national importance by making it a ‘material consideration’. If planning permission for a development is granted, the authority may, if it wishes, impose an archaeological condition (a specimen is given in PPG16) whereby the developer must undertake an agreed programme of archaeological works (known as a mitigation strategy) at their own cost. Similar intentions are set out in planning guidance notes issued for Wales and Scotland.