Log boats, wooden structures, peat and palaeochannels, the challenges and opportunities afforded by decadal monitoring of an active quarry: A case study from Shardlow quarry, Middle Trent Valley, UK (original) (raw)
Related papers
Holocene alluviation and land-use change on Callaly Moor, Northumberland, England
Journal of Quaternary Studies, 1991
Archaeological survey and palaeoenvironmental investigations in Coe Burn, Callaly Moor, Northumberland, have examined the chronology and nature of prehistoric and historic land-use change in a small upland river catchment. These studies have revealed an intensively used landscape with evidence of late Neolithic to Bronze Age, medieval and post-medieval land use and settlement. Two episodes of valley floor alluviation are identified and dated to the middle-late Bronze Age and post-medieval periods. Magnetic mineral and geochemical analyses of fine sediments from the older alluvial fill show it to contain a high proportion of topsoil, which is believed to have been produced by soil erosion resulting from Bronze Age tree clearance and cultivation. Deposition of the younger alluvial fill (post AD1500) was associated with the inwash of relatively unweathered bedrock generated by coal mining in the catchment. It is demonstrated that by integrating archaeological field survey with off-site palaeoenvironmental investigations a much fuller picture of human activity and land-use change has emerged than otherwise would have been the case. Studies of this type may be particularly useful in other upland river catchments where archaeological survival is limited or poor
2019
The successful application of archaeological prospection techniques to complex geomorphological areas, such as alluvial environments, remains a significant challenge for heritage practitioners, particularly in advance of sand and gravel extraction activity which is also common in these areas. This is primarily because large parts of these landscapes are covered with a thick layer (or layers) of fine-grained alluvium that prevents the effective visualisation of any archaeological remains that may be deeply buried. However, such settings provide attractive locations for archaeological activity and when remains are located, they can be exceptionally well preserved. Moreover, the valley floor contains an assemblage of landforms such as paleochannels, terraces and gravel islands which record of the evolution of the river system (Brown, 1997). These geomorphological features often contain important ecofactual and archaeological remains and understanding their location, morphology and sedi...
Archaeological resource modelling in temperate river valleys: a case study from the Trent Valley, UK
Antiquity, 2008
Throughout the Quaternary, episodes of glaciation and associated low sea level have resulted in the connection of the terrestrial landmasses of Britain and mainland Europe. The river systems that established themselves across these newly emergent land surfaces of the coastal plain would have created important migration corridors for both animals and humans, a point corroborated by the affinity of Palaeolithic remains across Britain and Europe. Technological developments within the last decade have allowed these now submerged valley floors and adjacent terrestrial landscapes associated with the last cold stage and early and middle parts of the current (Holocene) interglacial to be explored and their archaeological legacies unravelled, providing geoarchaeologists with an opportunity to contribute to major cultural debates. However, in order to maximize knowledge, it is essential that geoarchaeologists working within river valleys across both Britain and the European continent are addressing similar research questions by collecting data using comparable methodologies. This paper reviews the approach taken in different regions and provides a baseline assessment to allow the development of a coherent European-wide framework for alluvial geoarchaeology and geoprospection, particularly with respect to the Holocene record.
Prehistoric palaeochannels and a ring ditch at Stanwick Quarry, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire Archaeology, 2004
Earlier stages of mineral extraction at Stanwick Quarry had been subject to excavation and survey in the 1980s and early 1990s as part of the Raunds Area Project, which investigated an extensive and long-lived prehistoric landscape, a large area of Iron Age and Roman settlement at Stanwick and the deserted medieval village of West Cotton. In this earlier work areas near the present river channels, where the gravel was overlain by 1.0-3.0m of alluvial clays, had been excluded from extraction. The final phase of working involved the extraction of gravel from these marginal areas so that the mineral resource was fully exploited. Given the quality of the previous results, the three areas involved were subject to an archaeological watching brief between 2002 and 2004 to determine the presence of any unrecognised dry-land sites and to examine the form and development of the palaeochannel system. The work has defined further details of the palaeochannels contemporary with the Neolithic and Bronze Age monument complex. A minor channel defining the eastern edge of Irthlingborough island had silted well before the commencement of monument building in the early fourth millennium, and a number of cut-off channels had silted at various dates during the Neolithic period and the sequence has been radiocarbon dated using waterlogged wood samples. In the early/middle Bronze Age a line of oak posts had been driven into the margins of a silted oxbow channel, and a small undated ring ditch, 10.5m in diameter, has added another monument to the prehistoric landscape.
42. Grant, M.J., Stevens, C.J., Whitehouse, N.J., Norcott, D, Macphail, R.I., Langdon, C. Cameron, N., Barnett, C. et al. 2014. A Palaeoenvironmental Context for Terminal Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Activity in the Colne Valley: Offsite records Contemporary with Occupation at Three Ways Wharf, Uxbridge. Environmental Archaeology 2014 Environmental Archaeology 2014 VOL. 19 NO. 2 131 A palaeoenvironmental context for Terminal Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic activity in the Colne Valley: Offsite records contemporary with occupation at Three Ways Wharf, Uxbridge: Multi-proxy analyses from floodplain deposits in the Colne Valley, southern England, have provided a palaeoenvironmental context for the immediately adjacent Terminal Upper Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic site of Three Ways Wharf. These deposits show the transition from an open cool environment to fully developed heterogeneous floodplain vegetation during the Early Mesolithic. Several distinct phases of burning are shown to have occurred that are chronologically contemporary with the local archaeological record. The floodplain itself is shown to have supported a number of rare Urwaldrelikt insect species implying human manipulation of the floodplain at this time must have been limited or episodic. By the Late Mesolithic a reed-sedge swamp had developed across much of the floodplain, within which repeated burning of the in situ vegetation took place. This indicates deliberate land management practices utilising fire, comparable with findings from other floodplain sequences in southern Britain. With similar sedimentary sequences known to exist across the Colne Valley, often closely associated with contemporary archaeology, the potential for placing the archaeological record within a spatially explicit palaeoenvironmental context is great.
Journal of Quaternary Science, 2022
The hunter-gatherers that entered the British peninsula after ice-retreat were exploiting a dynamic, rapidly changing environment. Records of vegetation change and human occupation during the Lateglacial to Early Holocene in northern Britain are more commonly found at upland and cave sites. However, recent research highlights many areas of the Swale-Ure Washlands that preserve extensive environmental sequences in low-lying ice-wastage basins, channels and depressions. The Lateglacial-Early Holocene environment of Killerby Quarry, North Yorkshire, is investigated here using a multi-proxy approach of sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA), pollen, sedimentological (geochemistry and portable optically stimulated luminescence), and rare and well-preserved archaeology (Lavvu structures and lithics). Results show that the wetland basins and kettleholes were small lakes or ponds in the Lateglacial surrounded by sedge-fen and birch woodland. A gradual (centennial scale) succession to reed-swamp and then marsh is seen by the Early Holocene. This environment formed the resource-scape for hunter-gatherer transitory settlement in both the Lateglacial (Late Upper Palaeolithic) and Holocene (Early Mesolithic), attracted by the rich communities of pond-related flora and fauna as well as easy strategic landscape access by way of the River Swale, an arterial route through the landscape connecting the North Sea Basin with the Pennine uplands via the palaeolakes around Killerby.