20 research outputs found
Wharram Percy Digital Archive
No full textThe primary aim of the project has been to disseminate, by the most appropriate means, the results of the excavations carried out at the deserted medieval village site of Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire, between 1950 and 1990. The current phase of the project began in 2000, and has resulted in the publication of six printed volumes detailing the principal findings of excavations carried out in various parts of the village
site during the 1970s and 1980s. These volumes have been based on lengthier archive reports and datasets relating to the analysis of stratigraphic, artefactual and environmental data, and it is some of these data that are being disseminated through the Archaeology Data Service (ADS).
Given the enormous quantity of data produced from the 40 year excavation project, it has been possible to disseminate via ADS only the unpublished information created in digital format during this final phase of the Post-excavation Analysis and Publication Project. It includes the full site reports and illustrations for the excavations reported only in summary form in Volume XIII; the analytical data for finds reported in
Volumes X-XIII, and a number of more complete datasets relating to material published in all thirteen volumes, including pottery, animal bone, human remains, clay pipes and coins
Woodland in Roman Britain: Some Hypotheses
No full textABSTRACTThe recently published ‘Fields of Britannia’ project has lent a measure of support to the idea that the patterning of woodland and open land evident in the Anglo-Saxon period may in part have persisted since Roman times, if not before. This article explores the potential value of these woodland and open land contrasts in explaining the locations and distribution of a variety of Roman cultural material: coins, military installations and early road alignments.</jats:p
The King's Mills, Leeds the history and archaeology of the manorial water-powered corn mills
No full textThe Isle of Wight in the English landscape: Medieval and Post-Medieval rural settlement and land use.
No full textThe thesis is a local-scale study which aims to place the Isle of Wight in the English landscape. It examines the much discussed but problematic concept of ‘islandness’, identifying distinctive insular characteristics and determining their significance but also investigating internal landscape diversity. This is the first detailed academic study of Isle of Wight land use and settlement from the early medieval period to the nineteenth century and is fully referenced to national frameworks. The thesis utilises documentary, cartographic and archaeological evidence. It employs the techniques of historic landscape characterisation (HLC), using synoptic maps created by the author and others as tools of graphic analysis. An analysis of the Isle of Wight’s physical character and cultural roots is followed by an investigation of problems and questions associated with models of settlement and land use at various scales. Specifically, national-scale models by Oliver Rackham and by Brian Roberts and Stuart Wrathmell are critically assessed for their value as frameworks within which Isle of Wight data may be examined, as is the local-scale Isle of Wight HLC model. Historic Ordnance Survey maps, royal surveys, manorial surveys and other sources are used to define the Isle of Wight’s territorial units and patterns of land use, enclosure and settlement; to create a new model of 1790s HLC Areas; and to construct a database listing all settlements by size and form. Nucleation and dispersion densities are calculated from this database, compared with Isle of Wight densities mapped by Roberts & Wrathmell and discussed in relation to densities elsewhere in England. Regional-scale patterns of settlement and land-use within central southern England are considered and the relevance of national-scale models of settlement and land use to this region is discussed. The origins and evolution of Isle of Wight settlements are then explored, using evidence from early sources including place-names, Domesday Book, tax lists and surveys. Subsequent analysis defines discrete cultural zones within the Isle of Wight, confirming the diversity and ancient origins of its cultural landscapes. The final chapter provides a synoptic assessment of models, emphasising the value of the local-scale 1790s HLC Areas model and recognising the compatibility of Roberts & Wrathmell’s national-scale settlement model with detailed local data for the Isle of Wight. It is found that Rackham’s model of Ancient Countryside conforms partially with local attributes but that this model may now need some revision. The paradoxical status of the Solent as both a gateway and a cultural boundary is proposed, as is the Island’s affinity with other ‘peripheral’ areas of England
Atlas of Rural Settlement in England
No full textThe Atlas of Rural Settlement in England GIS comprises the results of two projects based on Brian K Roberts and Stuart Wrathmell's An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England (2000).
The aim of the data conversion project was to enable the key maps of rural settlement and terrain presented in the printed Atlas to be used more effectively than before in research on landscape and settlement in England, as well as in the management of the historic environment. The maps printed in the Atlas were produced digitally, but were created as vector graphics files, and were therefore not useable in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. Given the now-widespread use of GIS software in the management and study of the historic environment, as well as the availability of software such as Google Earth, that lacuna significantly restricted the use and value of the Atlas's maps. Presenting Roberts and Wrathmell's materials in an interactive, spatially-aware digital format will enable a variety of users to examine, query and re-interpret Roberts and Wrathmell's results.
The aims of the environmental analysis project were to investigate the inter-relationships of environmental factors and historic settlement organisation and how they are expressed as regional and local variations, and to develop a new, national-scale characterisation of historic settlement organisation as it relates to the physical environment. The project combined the GIS data for historic settlement nucleation and dispersion with a range of data on environmental variables (topography, precipitation, temperature and soils) in order to explore which environmental variables (if any) appear to have had the most significant influence on regional variation in historic settlement organisation
