Blurb:

Three of the main problems of 'on site' survey are discussed. Such survey provides an approach bridging the gap between regional survey and excavation, where new methods are being developed. It examines how these problems can be resolved and illustrates this with an Etruscan example from Italy. The author stresses the need for three sets of models, to explain the meaning of ploughsoil finds, to record and retrieve them, and to interpret surface scatters. These models must take into account both the processes involved which determine what will be left for the archaeologists and what will be altered before discovery. Finally, the interdependence of survey and excavation is stressed and attention drawn to the necessity of the latter providing chronologies for recovered artefacts from the surface.