Archaeology of the East Midlands: Class 3. Radcliffe Autumn 2014

An Archaeology of the
East Midlands
Class 3: Iron Age to Dark Age,
Cultural Transitions in the
Archaeological Record.
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk

Recap: Last Week
• The early prehistory of the Midlands
• How far back can we go in the Midlands?
• The Bytham River and the colonisation of England
• The end of the last glaciation
• Doggerland and the changing face of the land
• The Late Upper Palaeolithic of the Midlands
• The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (transitions)
• Settlement
• Death and Burial
• Ceremonial and Ritual Monuments
• Techniques of Archaeological Research 2: Finding things from the air
.

Class Summary
• Later Prehistory, Iron Age Landscape and
Society
• The Roman Interlude
• Dark Age or Iron Age – A Return
• Coffee Break
• Techniques of Archaeological Research 3:
Seeing Beneath the Soil

Learning Outcomes
• Appreciate some of the aspects of late prehistoric
society in the Midlands
• Think about the impact of Romanisation and the decline
of Rome on the Midlands
• Appreciate the origins of Anglo-Saxon society in England
• Give thought to the cultural, material and social
similarities between late prehistoric and dark age Britain
• Know a little about lidar
• Have a broad appreciation of the types and uses of
geophysical survey in British archaeology

Section 1: Later Prehistory,
Iron Age Landscape and
Society

Iron Age Landscape and Society
• When
• In Britain c.800BC to AD43
• Late IA from 100BC
• Adoption of Iron as a
predominant metal, new
techniques, smithing not casting
• More complex settlement
• Defended sites
• Complex social groups (tribes)
• Coinage
• Urbanism
• Druidism
• More European contacts

• Landscape and Environment
• Generally continuity from earlier settlements
• Landscape “filled in” suggests growing
population and competition for resources
• EG. extensive co-axial field systems of Trent
Valley known from cropmarks
• Common settlement for is farmstead within
enclosure
• Mixed farming economy, variation in
dominance of arable and pastoral depending
on location
• Some larger aggregated settlements, eg
Naveby, Lincs Gamston, Notts

• Large Defended Sites
• Large defended sites
include hillforts, marsh forts
and lowland defended
enclosures
• Hillforts some record of
reuse
• High status finds at Burrow
Hill – rare chariot remains

• The End…
• Generally continuity of settlement from LIA to Roman
• Roman reorganisation of landscape
• New rural settlement forms (Villa estates)
• Intensification of agriculture
• LIA culture was sophisticated
– Included use of money
– Some urbanisation
– Complex social organisation (adopted by Roam
administration)
– Advances metal working and other technologies
• But a tribal society lacking central organisation

Section 2. The Roman
Interlude

The Roman Interlude
• The Beginning…
• Roman military activity in Midlands
relatively brief (1st century only)
• In general not a contested zone, but
marks boundary between civilianised
south and militarised north (Trent / Fosse
Way boundary)
• Largely within the Civitas Corieltauvorum
• Extensive and abundant archaeological
record in East Midlands
• Extensive rural settlement hierarchy
building on LIA roots
• Systematic organisation of agricultural
landscape evident (Brickwork Plan field
System in North Notts/South Yorks)

The Roman Interlude
• Towns and Romanisation
• Two major urban centres Lindum Colonia
(Lincoln) founded c AD96 and Ratae
Corieltauvorum (Leicester) set up as
Civitas capital c AD 96 on IA precursor
• Hierarchy of smaller towns and roadside
settlements
• Religious centres eg Red Hill, Ratcliffe on
Soar

The Roman Interlude
• Another end…
• Roman withdrawal in AD410 isolated Britain from a
centralise European network
• Social and economic collapse, but not invasion or
military conquest
• Wroxeter Baths Basilica – continuity of occupation,
but on a different social and economic scale
• Anglo-Saxon settlers occupy vacuum of Roman
absence?
• Problematic areas
– Hiatus in rural settlement
– Technological decline
– Population
– Gross changes in material culture and social
organisation
• Dark Age or second Iron Age?

Section 3. Dark Age or Iron
Age?

Dark Age or Iron Age
Origins
• Post Roman
settlement from
Denmark and
north Germany
• Co-existence
with native
Romanised
British
populations
• Complex social
and racial
mixing

• Discussion – Anglo Saxon Midlands

Material Culture
• Highly distinctive
material culture,
largely evidenced
in grave goods
• Architectural
innovation
• Language

Death and Burial
• Large cremation
cemeteries imply
substantial immigrant
population
• How much is a
processes of
acculturation of
collapsing Romanised
British population?

Settlements
• Not villages!
• Small clusters of simple
dwellings (Hall
House/Grubenhaus)
• Local clearance or
adoption of existing
agricultural lands
• Revealed by later 20th
century archaeology
(West Stow, Mucking,
etc)

Mucking

Catholme
• A large settlement of Grubenhauser and
wall-post buildings was occupied from at
least the seventh to the ninth centuries.
• The settlement was set in a framework of
enclosures and trackways defined by
shallow ditches
• Evidence from excavation, cropmarks and
fieldwalking suggests that the excavated
features may represent the final phase of a
single settlement, located at the Tame/Trent
confluence in the mid-Romano-British
period, and migrating along the river terrace
through the early Saxon period, and into the
middle/late Anglo-Saxon period
• The population of Catholme may have been
substantially, even wholly, native

Middle Saxon England
• By mid 7th century
emergence of larger
polities
• Kingdoms documented
in Tribal Hidage
• Increasing social
complexity
• Towns and trade

Christianity and the
State
• Promotion of ideal of
kingship
• Innovation in land
holding (and
influence on
organisation of land?)
• Role in cementing
emerging polities

Catch up: Lidar and
Archaeology

Finding things from the air
• Lidar – What is it?
• Lidar (Light Detection and
Ranging
• Uses a very high frequency
pulsing laser to scan ground
below a moving aircraft
• Calculations using GPS and
INS allow generation of 3D
map of ground surface

• Lidar – Seeing Beneath the Trees
Welshbury Hill, Gloucestershire (Deveraux et al, 2005)

• Lidar – Understanding What You See
Elevation (Height)
Hill Shade (Shadows)

• Lidar in the Midlands
Lidar used as a tool to update HER Challis et al 2008

M1 motorway widening
scheme

East Fen, Lincolnshire
•Lidar reveals the slight traces of
the complex creeks and inlets of
the Bronze Age valley
•Roddons, sandy ridges exposed
by desiccating peat
•The drainage network
dramatically altered by Roman and
later hydraulic engineering

Section 4. Seeing Beneath
the Soil

• What is Geophysical Survey?
• Electrical Techniques
• Magnetic Techniques
• Radar

What is Geophysical Survey?
• Geophysical surveys are techniques used to measure different physical
properties of the surface and subsurface. Some of these properties
may reflect buried archaeological features and deposits, many others
will relate to a range of other factors.
• It is important to remember that these techniques do not detect
archaeology – they detect ‘anomalies’ in the subsurface environment.
• Further investigations are usually required to establish whether the
results of a geophysical survey definitely reflect archaeological remains.

• First recorded use for archaeology in Britain by
Richard Atkinson at Dorchester-on-Thames
(1946). Precursor of resistance technique and
used to locate moist ditches cut into gravel.
• 1950s – 1970s – technological and
methodological innovations but techniques still
not widespread.
• Late 1980s onwards (esp 1990s +) get ever
increasing use and development:
– Technological developments (quicker,
higher resolution…)
– Nature of British archaeology changed –
developer-led approach requires rapid
evaluation of large areas. Geophysics is
ideally suited to this.

• 2000 - 2010 – well established
and relatively widely used
approach (as reflected in
Archaeological Prospection, the
Time Team television series
amongst others).
• 2010 onwards – automated
rapid data acquisition, powered
or towed arrays, very high
resolution multi sensor
techniques which collect huge
volumes of data

Types of Geophysical Survey
We can separate geophysical prospection into
active and passive techniques
a) Active techniques, which are based on the
injection of signals into the ground (e.g. an
electric current or electromagnetic wave) and
measurement of the response on the ground
surface.
b) Passive techniques, which rely on physical
attributes that would exist even in the
absence of measuring device (such as the
magnetic field of a buried kiln).

Survey Methods
• Resistance survey
• Magnetometer survey
• Ground-penetrating radar
• Magnetic susceptibility
• Electrical Imaging

Magnetic Survey
• Magnetic survey equipment measures
distortions in the Earth’s magnetic field.
• These magnetic anomalies can be the result
of two main phenomena:
1. Thermoremanence
2. Magnetic susceptibility
• In archaeological terms this is likely to relate
to: ditches, pits, kilns, hearths, ovens,
ferrous debris…
• Data collection is rapid and is therefore the
primary technique used in evaluations.
• The surveyor must be completely free of
ferrous material – including belt buckles,
keys, zips, eyelets on shoes…

Earth Resistance Survey
• Resistance survey is an active geophysical
technique, involving the passing of an
electrical current into the ground and
measuring the resistance to the flow of this
current.
• The resistance of a material to an electrical
current is mainly influenced by its moisture
content and porosity.
• Compact, dry features such as walls or
metalled surfaces will provide a relatively high
resistance response, whilst silted-up ditches
and pits will retain moisture and provide a
relatively low resistance response.
• The technique is relatively slow and therefore
not usually suited to large area surveys. Can
be adapted to provide depth estimations.

Ground-Penetrating Radar
(GPR)
• An active geophysical technique that involves
passing a pulse of electromagnetic energy into
the ground and measuring the response time
as it is reflected back to the surface.
• The pulse of energy is emitted from a
transmitter antenna, returning echoes from
different interfaces.
• The travel times of the echo are recorded by a
receiver antenna and converted to depths.
• Some of the energy is reflected back from the
interface between contrasting subsurface
anomalies. The rest of the energy continues
deeper into the ground to be reflected from
another interface deeper into the soil profile.
• Unlike many other techniques, radar produces
vertical slices through the ground

Laxton Castle, Notts
Geophysical Survey Example

Earth Resistance
Gradiometer

Radar

Further Study
Assignment
•Viking impact on the East Midlands
•Read Biddle’s account of his seminal excavations
at Repton in Antiquity
•What does his excavation tell us about the Vikings
in our region and how generally applicable is any
insight from this excavation?

Archaeology of the East Midlands: Class 3. Radcliffe Autumn 2014

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Archaeology of the East Midlands: Class 3. Radcliffe Autumn 2014