Building permit with an excavation permit

Just bury the finds at a neighbor you don't like and call the authorities anonymously

I'm glad that back then I buried the disgusting Egon, his stupid cat, at the neighbor's place

What exactly do you want to know? I am an archaeologist myself and very often supervise construction measures.

Our acquaintances had the same. Right at the beginning, some coin was found and the start of construction was delayed by over a year. An old marketplace was suspected there. Then, when partially plates and cutlery were also found, nothing happened anymore. Sometimes they came in pairs, sometimes with five men. Sometimes not at all. They were very patient. The start of construction was delayed by over a year. Various appointments had to be canceled or rescheduled. Loan-free period goodbye. All in all, a mid five-figure amount was spent on the operation.

I myself am an archaeologist

Hello Grillhendl Do people really think that with this legislation archaeologically interesting things can be saved from destruction? If someone is building, they cannot risk not being allowed to continue for months or years. So the parts end up in the container. Wouldn't cost coverage for the measures and the downtime be more sensible? Like in my case: The threat to recover the moose and burden me with costs of up to 40,000 euros was present. (Moose is uninteresting and was released for destruction) If I had been told: The moose will be recovered at our expense in 3 weeks. Then I would have gladly agreed. Steven

I don’t know. Here in Germany, archaeology is difficult. On the one hand, people lack understanding, and on the other hand, when there is understanding, you can get a kick in the backside (like in your case). A middle ground would have to be found. But there is a lack of lobbying.

On the other hand, at the construction site: some things become more expensive, suddenly you need more of this and that. That is accepted, even if the person gets nothing out of it. But with the archaeologists (which is known in advance if accompaniment is required) then there is a big outcry....

In Bavaria itself, there is the Denkmalatlas, where anyone can look to see if their property might be archaeologically "burdened". Some initiative is then also needed to check if something might come up...

I don’t know how it is handled in other federal states. In Bavaria, by now there are only private excavation companies; the builder can get offers and then award individually. There’s nothing like "they have the peace of mind" ( ) here, unfortunately. Neither the builder nor the archaeology company can afford that.... But that varies from federal state to federal state.

With single-family houses, you don’t really have the "problem": the building window is small, the construction depth is sufficient (good if you “only” have a floor slab), and the rest can be conservatively covered.

Although I do not work as an archaeologist, I have that qualification and I can only agree with ... the legal situation is probably neither well designed from a layperson's perspective nor from that of archaeologists, but it is what it is, and usually archaeologists strive to achieve more understanding and acceptance among the public and therefore probably do not work unnecessarily slowly and thus cause unnecessarily high costs. No one benefits from that. However, sometimes a decision must be made about where the priority is more urgent. So maybe on a day when no one showed up at construction site A, something at construction site B had to be urgently protected/recovered from the weather or similar. Archaeologists then have to set priorities in the interest of their science. And yes, when building a house, one should also inform oneself in advance whether one is building in an area where archaeological finds are expected and then, if necessary, take that into account during planning.