Johnston, R., May, R. and McOmish, D. (2021) Understanding the chronologies of England’s field systems. In: Arnoldussen, S., Johnston, R. and Løvschal, M., (eds.) Europe's Early Fieldscapes: Archaeologies of Prehistoric Land Allotment. Themes in Contemporary Archaeology . Springer, Cham , pp. 185-207. ISBN 9783030716516
Abstract
The chapter presents the outcomes from a project funded by Historic England to collate and analyse scientific dates for field systems in England. The project identified 393 scientific dates from more than 120 excavated field systems. The analysis provides a constructive critique of fieldscape chronologies and recommends methodological improvements and directions for future research. The results indicate that bounded fields appeared in the English landscape during the first quarter of the second millennium BC, and that subsequent enclosure was an ongoing, geographically discontinuous process. The active apportionment of land and maintenance of field systems was possibly interrupted during c. 1000–600 BC, as a hiatus was observed in the project’s data. Post-Roman and medieval field systems are rarely targeted for scientific dating, with the consequence that the continuity of field systems from the Roman period into later landscapes remains ill-defined. There are major biases in the current dataset of scientific dates. The project has illustrated the requirement for standardised reporting of scientific dates in grey literature reports, publications, and data archives. Geographical biases within the data occur due to regional concentrations in the application of development-led archaeology, and the impacts of regional priorities and research agendas. Future legislative protection, research frameworks and fieldwork strategies should prioritise understanding the long chronologies of field systems and rebalance our current attention towards periodised perspectives.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Editors: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Author(s). This is an author-produced version of a chapter subsequently published in Europe's Early Fieldscapes. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | England; Field systems; Dating; Chronology; Long-term developments |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Archaeology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 13 Oct 2021 11:18 |
Last Modified: | 01 Oct 2023 00:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer, Cham |
Series Name: | Themes in Contemporary Archaeology |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/978-3-030-71652-3_13 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:179194 |