Excavation company

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An excavation company (also known colloquially as an excavation company) is a specialist company in the preservation of monuments or archeology , which specializes in commercial services in the preservation sector.

Range of services

Documentation of a finding during a construction project.

The range of services offered by excavation companies includes:

An excavation company is usually equipped with modern surveying equipment and high-quality excavation equipment. Some companies also have their own construction machines, including operating personnel.

Field of activity

In the Federal Republic of Germany, monument protection is a sovereign matter of the federal states. Due to the respective monument protection laws , the commissioning of an excavation company is currently only allowed in the states of Baden-Württemberg , Bavaria , Hesse , Saxony-Anhalt , Berlin - Brandenburg , Schleswig-Holstein , Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia . The Switzerland rejects excavation company, while the Netherlands , Belgium , France , Malta , Poland and Austria work with the specialist company. In Europe , excavation companies are best established in the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , where they have been operating since the late 1990s. There are now companies with 100 or more employees.

Corporate structure in Germany

The first excavation companies were founded in Germany in the early 1990s. Many of the 150 or so companies today are civil law companies (GbR) with fewer than five employees. Like some of the larger companies, they work with project-related students and sometimes only appear regionally. Some excavation companies are also organized in state-wide associations , such as the association of archaeological specialist companies (especially North Rhine-Westphalia ) and the state association of independent archaeologists in Bavaria . The Federal Association of Freelance Cultural Scientists is active nationwide , but represents a broader representation of the interests of cultural scientists.

qualification

The staff of an excavation company is made up of specialists, trained excavation technicians , and excavation draftsmen and assistants. The latter are usually provided by students. For the specialist scientist, a master’s degree or a doctorate , especially in prehistory and early history or provincial Roman archeology , is required. So far, there are only a few opportunities for Bachelor graduates . New technologies, such as 3-D laser scans , computer-aided measurement, etc., as well as the use of large equipment, are increasingly being used by excavation companies.

financing

The services of the excavation companies are usually financed by the so-called polluter pays principle , which obliges a building owner to have a building or soil monument endangered by the construction project examined up to a specified amount . The maximum financing limit depends on the planned investment volume. In Germany, this is between 5 and 15% of the construction cost, depending on the country.

At sight

The activity of an excavation company is subject to strict requirements by the responsible monument conservation authority. These provide guidelines for the excavation method, documentation and use of personnel. Most monument offices keep a list of the excavation companies they have accepted, which they pass on to the client concerned. They also monitor the work of the companies on site and carry out a final check of the excavation documentation. Some specialist authorities also reserve the right to publish the excavation results, which is usually the responsibility of the scientific excavation manager.

Since 2017, scientists from excavation companies have had the opportunity to publish their results in collaboration with the German Society for Prehistory and Early History (DGUF) in the Archaeological Sources series .

literature

Web links