Excavation is widely seen as the main focus of archaeology. As these pages make clear, we offer a much wider range of services than excavation, though often excavation or investigation is the final outcome. When the Historic Places Trust issues an authority to modify, damage or destroy a site it is recognised that this destruction will be mitigated through scientific investigation of the site, that is, it is destroyed in a controlled way, and recorded and sampled in the process, by an archaeologist.

Archaeological sites are a finite resource. Every site that is destroyed diminishes that resource by one. It is a moral obligation on archaeologists to report their findings so that the information is rescued and becomes part of the archaeological record. Archaeological investigation reports belong in the public domain, and all of ours are available as free downloads in pdf format.