Excavations at Hengistbury Head Site 6 (Dragonfly Ponds) in 1984–5 uncovered a rare sequence of cultivation features, with pre-Late Iron Age to Romano-British period spade marks and an associated cultivation soil underlying proposed Romano-British furrows and another cultivation soil (Chadburn & Gardiner 1985; Chadburn 1987). Keyhole excavations for soil micromorphological study of these features and soils were conducted in 1997 as part of a larger project on identifying and characterising prehistoric cultivation from soil indicators in the field and in thin section (Lewis 1998). Profile inversion indicators identified within the implement marks suggest that the spade-mark horizon may show ‘double-digging’, and that the furrows were probably created by post-Roman mouldboard ploughing. Excavation and soil micromorphology results are presented here, and the importance of the remains at Hengistbury Head to the study of ancient agricultural land use is discussed in terms of methodological issues.
Profile Inversion and Closed Form Formulation of Compact GRIN Lenses