AS reaches Report Number 5000

This week we produced our 5000th report since numbering began, prompting us to take a look at the reports that have been produced by AS over that time.

Report Number 1 was written when AS was still in its former guise as the Hertfordshire Archaeological Trust, although the organisation had been in existence and producing reports for several years before they were assigned numbers. This first report detailed the excavations undertaken at Boxfield Farm in Stevenage, a site which yielded notable Roman occupation evidence. As befits an organisation that was initially set up to cover the Hertfordshire area, the first 94 reports all related to archaeological work in this county, with the notable exception of Number 36 which was a report on a trial trench evaluation in the London Borough of Barnet.

After that point in time, however, the geographical spread of the work conducted by the organisation began to increase and the evolution of HAT into Archaeological Solutions Ltd saw even greater diversification. While the majority of the work that AS carries out is conducted in the Home Counties, East Anglia, and London, we have produced reports on archaeological work in counties as far west as Cornwall and as far north as County Durham. To date, AS has carried out work in at least 41 different counties or unitary authority areas (a figure which does not distinguish between the different London boroughs). It is interesting to note trends in this data relating to important developments in the organisation.

Of the 5000 reports that AS have produced, nearly 1300 of these are archaeological trial trench evaluation reports, close to 900 are reports on programmes of archaeological monitoring and recording, more than 750 are archaeological desk-based assessments, over 500 are historic building recording documents, and in excess of 300 are initial or interim reports on open area archaeological excavations. In addition to these are the various Environmental Impact Assessments, specialist analysis reports, technical excavation documents, and publications that we produce. To read more about these services, click here.