an archaeology of the east midlands. class 1 beeston winter 2015
TRANSCRIPT
An Archaeology of the East Midlands
Class 1: Introduction
Tutor: Keith Challis
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Class Summary
• Admin and Housekeeping• Personal Introduction• Course Outline• What is archaeology?
• Coffee Break
• The Environment of the East Midlands
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Practicalities
• Enrolment paperwork
• Register
• Absence ([email protected]) or Phone/Txt 07921457007
• What to bring
• Handouts (paperless course?)
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About Me• National Trust
• Research Associate, Department of Archaeology, University of York
• Research Fellow in Remote Sensing, University of Birmingham
• Research Officer, York Archaeological Trust
• Research Associate, University of Nottingham
• 13 years project management and commercial archaeological consultancy at Trent & Peak Archaeology
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Learning Outcomes• Understand in general terms the chronology and material culture of
human activity in the East Midlands.
• Appreciate some of the factors that uniquely characterise the archaeology and history of the East Midlands.
• Have a broad appreciation of archaeological research techniques and so be able to critically assess archaeological research and literature.
• Be familiar with and have an outline grasp of some of the main techniques of archaeological research.
• Be able to engage critically with archaeological evidence for the East Midlands so as to achieve a fresh appreciation of the landscape and history of our region.
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Course Outline
1. The Early Environment of the East Midlands.
2. Prehistory in the Trent Valley and the Peak.
3. From Roman to Saxon, Cultural Transitions in the Archaeological Record.
4. A Disputed Land: Angles, Saxon and Vikings in the East Midlands.
5. The Medieval Countryside of the East Midlands.
6. The Medieval Town in the East Midlands.
7. The East Midlands, 1600-1900.
8.Themes in Industrial and Early Modern Archaeology.
9. Heritage, history and identity. How the past contributes to the Regional identity of the East Midlands
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Options
Existing group knowledge and skills…?
Periods…?
Locales…?
Themes and Skills…?
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Learning Experience• Informal Lecture
• Discussion
• Techniques
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Reading and Books
Adkins, R. The Handbook of British Archaeology
Beckett, J. 1988. The East Midlands from 1000AD
Greene, K. Archaeology: An Introduction
Muir, R. 2000. The New Reading the Landscape.
Stafford, P. 1985. The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages
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Reading and Books
Course bookshop (Amazon)
http://astore.amazon.co.uk/hoskins-21
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Course Web Site
• Lecture Slides
• Downloadable handouts
• Bookshop
• Resources
• Supplementary Material
• Answers
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http://east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
What is Archaeology?
Defining Archaeology
• The study of past peoples, cultures and societies through their material remains
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
What is Archaeology?
Defining Archaeology
• the study of human activity in the past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes (the archaeological record).
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
What is Archaeology?Theoretical Approaches to
Archaeology
• Art Historical Traditions• Material culture and
distribution dominance• New
(quantitative/modernist) thinking
• Post modernism and phenomenology
• ? Pragmatic archaeology
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What is Archaeology?
Cultural Historical
• Culture-historical archaeology is an archaeological theory that emphasises defining historical societies into distinct ethnic and cultural groupings according to their material culture.
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What is Archaeology?
The New Archaeology (Processual)
• Concerned with the processes of cultural change…
• and the appropriate objective methods used to study them
• Explanation is scientific through the construction and testing of hypotheses and general observations
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What is Archaeology?
Post-Processual Archaeology
• Contextual archaeology sees material remains as a text to be decoded
• Reflexivity - Ability to change methods as you work
• Knowledge stems from the dialogue between subject (archaeologist) and object (remains)
• Rejection of concept of ‘objective reality’
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What is Archaeology?
Phenomenology(the philosophical study of the structures of
subjective experience and consciousness).
“To understand a landscape truly it must be felt, but to convey some of this feeling to others it has to be talked about, recounted, or written and depicted."
Chris Tilley
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What is Archaeology?
Pragmatic Archaeology
• The real work [in the study of landscape] is accomplished by the men and women with the muddy boots and aching joints who do most of the work (Muir 2000)
• [The author’s] hobby is exploring England on foot, a pursuit of inexhaustible interest in which he reckons to make at least one major “discovery” each week (Hoskins 1954)
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What is Archaeology?
Field Archaeology
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• OGS Crawford (1886 – 1957)• Pioneer aerial archaeologist
• Founder of Antiquity
• First archaeological officer for Ordnance Survey
• Coined the term Field Archaeology to describe the practical map, photograph and field observation technique he developed (Archaeology in the Field, 1953)
What is Archaeology?
Landscape Archaeology
• the study of the ways in which people in the past constructed and used the environment around them
• WG Hoskins: emphasised fieldwork, especially walking the landscape, the primacy of local knowledge and exploration of diverse sources (documents, maps, place-names).
• The successful landscape historian assembled a narrative that explained the observable facets of landscape, explaining what of the past could be seen in the present.
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What is Archaeology?
Geoarchaeology
• a multi-disciplinary approach which uses the techniques and subject matter of geography, geology and other Earth sciences to examine topics which inform archaeological knowledge and thought.
• Geoarchaeologists study the natural physical processes that affect archaeological sites such as geomorphology, the formation of sites through geological processes and the effects on buried sites and artifacts post-deposition.
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What is Archaeology?
Environmental Archaeology
• The study of the long-term relationship between humans and their environments.
• Environmental archaeology is commonly divided into three subfields: archaeobotany (plants), zooarchaeology (animals), and archaeopedology (soil/sediments)
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The East Midlands
Regions, Geology and Topography
• Conventionally Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire (and Rutland), Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire.
• Straddles the boundary between the Upland and Lowland zones of England.
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The East Midlands
Solid Geology
East and South• Triassic clays• Jurassic Limestone• Chalk
North and West• Sandstone• Millstone Grit• Limestone
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The East Midlands
Glacial History
• Fully Ice covered in the Anglian Glaciation
• Partially covered in the LGM
• Tundra like environments
• Pro-glacial lakes
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The East Midlands
Drift Geology
• Highly complex• Pleistocene river gravels• Till/Boulder clay
• Wind blown sand
• Holocene reworking of gravels
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Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
Saxo-Norman basket-weir fish-trap from Hemington Quarry.
Image courtesy ULAS.
Anchor-stones for fish-traps from Hemington Quarry. Image
courtesy Chris Salisbury.
Late 11th century timber bridge across the Trent at Hemington Quarry. Image courtesy ULAS.
Timbers from an early 17th century kid-weir at Dovebridge, built to control increased flow in
the Dove during the Little Ice Age.
What is Geoarchaeology ?
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
Medieval masonry bridge pier at Hemington. Image courtesy ULAS.
Late Neolithic human remains in log-jam at Langford, Notts. Image courtesy TPAU.
Later prehistoric ditch beneath peaty alluvium at Girton, Notts.
Cropmarks of the late Neolithic cursus monument at Aston on Trent. Image English Heritage.
What is Geoarchaeology ?
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
The alluvial stratigraphy of the River Trent at Girton, Notts.
What is Geoarchaeology ?
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Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
MTV at Willington.
What is Geoarchaeology ?
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
What is Geoarchaeology ?
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
Airborne Alternatives to Muddy Boots
Air-photo mosaic and plot of palaeochannels of the Trent. Images courtesy Steve Baker, TPAU.
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Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
Airborne Alternatives to Muddy Boots
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Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
Geoarchaeology Under the Ground
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
Geoarchaeology Under the Ground
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Geoarchaeology in the Trent Valley
Geoarchaeology Under the Ground
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Self Assessment
Learning Outcomes
• Have a broad appreciation of what archaeology is and is not.
• Be aware of differing theoretical approaches to archaeological study.
• Understand differences between types of archaeological research.
• Grasp the physical outline of the East Midlands Landscape.
• Appreciate fluvial geoarchaeology.
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