My colleague Don Benson, who has died aged 83, belonged to the first generation of professional rescue archaeologists in the UK who in the 1960s and 70s responded to the increasing destruction of the historic environment by new developments.
Appointed in 1965 as the first field officer at the Oxford City and County Museum, he pioneered new techniques in the full excavation of the neolithic long barrow at Ascott-under-Wychwood in advance of road widening. The excavation remains a landmark in barrow studies, demonstrating their complexity and showing the barrow as part of a longer sequence including an extensive settlement. It was so well recorded that it was later possible to apply techniques such as extensive carbon dating and palaeopathology that were not readily available when the site was originally excavated.
While at Oxford, Don, working with colleagues including Mick Aston, invented the concept of the Sites and Monuments Record that has evolved into the essential foundation for effective heritage management across the UK. The record drew together material from a wide range of sources, allocated each site an individual record number and could be interrogated with optical coincidence cards (index cards punched with holes that, when held together against the light, identify sites that share characteristics). By 1972 more than 5,000 sites were recorded in the Oxfordshire Record.
Don left the museum in 1975 to become the first director of the Dyfed Archaeological Trust. With Jo Jeffries of the English Central Excavation Unit, he set up software and hardware for the first computerised Sites and Monuments Record in the UK. The system was widely adopted and led to the more comprehensive Historic Environment Records in use today. Without them there would be untold loss of archaeological evidence that reveals so much of our island story, and the level of public engagement with and understanding of our heritage would not have grown to the extent they have. I met Don in the late 70s when I was working for the Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust – the four Welsh archaeological trusts worked together closely – and I learned much from him.
After retiring from the trust in 2000, Don continued to research the archaeology and history of his adopted home of St Clears in Carmarthenshire, which he had moved to from Tackley, Oxfordshire, in 1975. He also spent time in the Outer Hebrides. He enjoyed collecting art, sailing, his garden, cooking, watching rugby and trips to the pub. A determined, ambitious and proud man with a sharp wit, Don loved talking to people and was very kind.
Born in Heysham, Lancashire, to Reginald Benson, a merchant navy engineer, and Annie (nee Nelson), a schoolteacher, Don was educated at Heversham grammar school and studied history at Edinburgh University.
His second wife, Nicola (nee Williams), whom he married in 1983, died in 2010. He is survived by his daughters, Hannah and Katie, from his first marriage, to Jane Gibbin, which ended in divorce, and by his grandchildren, Archie and Gwen.
