REBURIAL OF WATERLOGGED WOOD, THE PROBLEMS AND POTENTIAL OF THIS CONSERVATION TECHNIQUE

In Britain the archaeological work of the 1970s and 1980s recovered a large volume of waterlogged wood from terrestrial (non-marine) waterlogged anaerobic deposits. There are problems associated with preserving this material through either conservation, storage in ranks, or reburial. There has recently been a policy change of English Heritage to preserve archaeological sites by leaving them in situ rather than excavating them. Thus wooden structures ave being preserved by maintaining the waterlogged anaerobic deposits in which they ave buried (e.g. the Rose and Globe theatres). However, since the exact nature of waterlogged anaerobic burial environments is largely unresearched, the ability to maintain an environment for in situ burial or recreate it for the 'reburial' option is clearly limited. Appraisal of the role of oxygen content, ion species and Eh, organic molecules, biological activity and pH illustrates the problems faced in researching and recreating water logged anaerobic burial environments.