Settlement and economy in a changing prehistoric lowland landscape: an East Yorkshire (UK) case study

2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Halkon ◽  
Jim Innes

This article assesses the major changes in landscape and coastline, which took place in an area adjacent to the northern shore of the inner estuary of the river Humber, in East Yorkshire, UK, from the beginning of the Holocene to the Iron Age. It considers the effect of these changes on material culture as represented by artefact distributions, including flint assemblages and polished stone tools located during field survey. The conclusions presented here derive from a continuing programme of research in this study area and they are placed in the context of the wider Humber region and the North Sea Basin. This article advocates a restoration of balance with regard to geographical determinism – a new pragmatism – accepting that environmental factors have a great importance in determining the nature and location of certain activities in the past, though cannot be used to explain them all.

Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon

This is a study of the territorial structures within which past communities managed their landscapes. Today, we live our lives within a complex hierarchy of administrative units that includes parishes, districts, counties, and nations, and while some of these are recent in origin, others are deeply rooted in the past: most parts of England, for example, still have counties that are direct successors to the shires recorded in Domesday and which still form the basis for our local government. These territorial entities are an important part of our history, giving communities a sense of place and identity, and this book will explore where this aspect of our landscape has come from: might county names such as Essex— meaning the ‘East Saxons’—suggest that they originated as early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and if so, what was the relationship between these kingdoms and the Romano-British civitates and Iron Age kingdoms that preceded them? The idea that the landscape all around us has a long and complex history is a familiar one. For a long time, however, continuity stretching back to the Roman period and beyond was thought to be rare. Archaeologists and historians have argued that once Britain ceased to be part of the Roman Empire, its economy collapsed, and it was not long before hordes of Angles and Saxons sailed across the North Sea and dispossessed the Britons of their land. This was thought to have marked the onset of the ‘dark ages’ before the flowering of a new era of civilization—the ‘Middle Ages’—a few centuries later. Although this was the view when Hoskins (1955) wrote his Making of the English Landscape, it is noteworthy that in the same year Finberg (1955) published a short paper speculating that there may have been considerable continuitywithin the landscape at Withington in Gloucestershire. Overall, however, while some Romanists saw a degree of overlap and continuity during the Anglo-Saxon colonization, most saw the fifth century as one of dramatic change reflected in the apparent desertion of most towns and villas, the collapse of market-based trade and manufacturing, and the introduction of entirely new forms of architecture, burial practice and material culture (see Esmonde Cleary 2014, 3 for a historiography).


2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-114
Author(s):  
Kathryn J. Fewster

This paper considers how significance is given and denied to material remains from the past. It explores this issue by means of an ethnoarchaeological study conducted in and around the Castillian villages of Solosancho and Villaviciosa in the Amblés valley, Spain, between 1997 and 1999. It analyses the Iron Age and medieval symbolism used in a coat of arms produced in 1998, and argues that this object partially reflects a local narrative reasserting a sense of identity for Solosancho and its satellite village, Villaviciosa. This was done at a time when those two communities perceived themselves to be under social and economic threat. By concentrating on the performative, corporeal nature of the villagers’ interaction with their material culture in the present, the paper seeks to demonstrate how an ethnoarchaeological approach may help to illuminate the ways that memory and material culture may have been manipulated in the past, in the absence of large-scale, state-directed, structural intervention.


1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. G. Cazemier

In the past, the anadromous salmonids, Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and sea-trout (Salmo trutta), have formed natural populations in the river Rhine. From the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, the greater part of the drainage area of the river has been gradually altered from a more or less rural and agricultural area, into a highly industrialised one with subsequent industrialisation, river-engineering and heavy pollution. These developments are considered to be the major cause for the disappearance of the populations of anadromous salmonid fish in the 1950s. The water quality has recovered significantly during the past 25 years. From about 1975 onwards, this process gave rise to a recovery of the anadromous trout population. Results of recent studies of the sea-trout migration pattern are presented. They reveal that nowadays these salmonids can complete their up- and downstream migrations from the North Sea to places, situated at hundreds of kilometres upward the river and vica versa. The numbers of recorded Atlantic salmon and catch locations in inland waters are presented. They show a significant increase since 1989. These phenomena can be understood as promising signs of the recovery of the Rhine aquatic ecosystem.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Cogswell

AbstractHistorians have not paid close attention to the activities of freebooters operating out of Dunkirk in the late 1620s. This essay corrects that omission by first studying the threat from Dunkirk to England's east coast and then addressing how the central government, counties, and coastal towns responded. A surprisingly rich vein of manuscript material from Great Yarmouth and particularly from the Suffolk fishing community of Aldeburgh informs this case study of the impact of this conflict around the North Sea.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kelsey ◽  
Magnus Raaholt ◽  
Olav Einervoll ◽  
Rustem Nafikov ◽  
Stian Amble

Abstract Multilateral technology has for nearly three decades extended the production life of fields in the North Sea by delivering a higher recovery factor supported by the cumulative production of the multiple laterals. Additionally, operators continue to look at methods to reduce the environmental impact of drilling and intervention. Taking advantage of the latest multilateral technology can turn otherwise unviable reservoirs into economically sound targets by achieving a longer field life while minimizing construction costs, risk, and environmental impact. This paper will focus on mature fields in the region that have used multilateral applications for wells that were reaching the end of their life and have been extended to further economic production. This paper discusses challenges faced to provide a multilateral solution for drilling new lateral legs in existing wells where there is a lack of available slots to drill new wells. Additionally, discussion will cover completion designs that tie new laterals into existing production casing. The case study will include discussion of workover operations, isolation methods, and lateral creation systems. The paper focuses on the challenges, solutions, and successful case study of a retrofit multilateral well constructed in the North Sea which extended production life in a mature field by using innovative multilateral re-entry methods. The paper also provides insight as to methodology for continually improving reliability of multilateral installations to maximize efficiencies.


Author(s):  
Valenina Mordvinceva ◽  
Sabine Reinhold

This chapter surveys the Iron Age in the region extending from the western Black Sea to the North Caucasus. As in many parts of Europe, this was the first period in which written sources named peoples, places, and historical events. The Black Sea saw Greek colonization from the seventh century BC and its northern shore later became the homeland of the important Bosporan kingdom. For a long time, researchers sought to identify tribes named by authors such as Herodotus by archaeological means, but this ethno-deterministic perspective has come under critique. Publication of important new data from across the region now permits us to draw a more coherent picture of successive cultures and of interactions between different parts of this vast area, shedding new light both on local histories and on the role ‘The East’ played in the history of Iron Age Europe.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Daniel Pioske

Over the past twenty years our understanding of Philistine Gath's history (Tell es-Safl) has been transformed by what has been revealed through the site's early Iron Age remains. But what has received much less attention is the effect these ruins have on how we read references to the location within the Hebrew Bible. The intent of this study is to draw on the archaeological evidence produced from Tell es-Safl as an interpretive lens by which to consider the biblical portrayal of the site rendered in the book of Samuel, where the material traces of more amicable associations between Gath and highland populations invite us to reconsider the city's depiction in this ancient literary work.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-360
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Howland ◽  
Brady Liss ◽  
Thomas E. Levy ◽  
Mohammad Najjar

AbstractArchaeologists have a responsibility to use their research to engage people and provide opportunities for the public to interact with cultural heritage and interpret it on their own terms. This can be done through hypermedia and deep mapping as approaches to public archaeology. In twenty-first-century archaeology, scholars can rely on vastly improved technologies to aid them in these efforts toward public engagement, including digital photography, geographic information systems, and three-dimensional models. These technologies, even when collected for analysis or documentation, can be valuable tools for educating and involving the public with archaeological methods and how these methods help archaeologists learn about the past. Ultimately, academic storytelling can benefit from making archaeological results and methods accessible and engaging for stakeholders and the general public. ArcGIS StoryMaps is an effective tool for integrating digital datasets into an accessible framework that is suitable for interactive public engagement. This article describes the benefits of using ArcGIS StoryMaps for hypermedia and deep mapping–based public engagement using the story of copper production in Iron Age Faynan, Jordan, as a case study.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8869
Author(s):  
Andrew McCarthy

Cultural objects are thought to have a lifespan. From selection, through construction, use, destruction, and discard, materials do not normally last forever, transforming through stages of life, eventually leading to their death. The materiality of stone objects, however, can defy the inevitable demise of an object, especially durable ground stone tools that can outlive generations of human lifespans. How groups of people deal with the relative permanence of stone tools depends on their own relationship with the past, and whether they venerate it or reject its influence on the present. A case study from the long-lived site of Prasteio-Mesorotsos in Cyprus demonstrates a shifting attitude toward ground stone objects, from the socially conservative habit of ritually killing of objects and burying them, to one of more casual re-use and reinterpretation of ground stone. This shift in attitude coincides with a socio-political change that eventually led to the ultimate rejection of the past: complete abandonment of the settlement.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Lucas Wattimena ◽  
Marlyn J Salhuteru ◽  
Godlief A Peseletehaha

Situs Kel Lein di Pulau Kaimear, Kepulauan Kei, adalah salah satu situs gambar cadas yang baru ditemukan. Situs ini dilaporkan pada 2018 dan dilanjutkan dengan perekaman data intensif pada tahun berikutnya. Berbagai motif seni cadas yang tersebar di sepanjang teras, dinding, dan atap ceruk gua dibagi menjadi tujuh panel. Pendekatan dalam penelitian ini menggunakan deskriptif kualitatif. Data yang dikumpulkan dari survei lapangan pada tahun 2018, ditambah data terbaru yang diperoleh pada tahun 2019. Analisis gambar cadas dibagi menjadi beberapa panel di dalam ceruk, terdiri dari tujuh panel. Penelitian ini mencatat 488 motif, yang dikelompokkan menjadi motif figur manusia atau antropomorfik, perahu, alat batu, cap tangan (negatif), jejak kaki, geometris, lingkaran, garis vertikal dan horizontal, wajah atau topeng manusia, ayam atau hewan, tempayan (tembikar), jaring ikan, matahari, bulan, dan panah. Penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa banyak motif gambar cadas di Situs Kel Lein mengandung berbagai makna. Salah satunya adalah aktivitas manusia yang digambarkan dalam bentuk figuratif. Keragaman motif di Situs Kel Lein menempatkan situs ini pada posisi penting dalam kajian jalur migrasi manusia. Diperkirakan situs ini adalah salah satu lokasi yang cukup ramai disinggahi pada masa lalu. The Kel Lein Site in Kaimear Island, Kei Islands, is a recently discovered rock art site. This site was reported in 2018 and continued with intensive data recording the following year. Various rock art motifs scattered along the terrace, walls, and roof of the niche are divided into seven panels. The approach in this research uses descriptive qualitative. The data collected from a field survey in 2018, plus the latest data obtained in 2019. The rock art analysis is divided into several panels inside the niche, comprising seven panels. This research recorded 488 motifs, grouped into human or anthropomorphic figure, boats, stone tools, hand stencils (negative), footprints, geometric, circles, vertical and horizontal lines, human faces or masks, chickens, jars (pottery), fishing nets, sun, moon, and arrowheads. This research shows that many rock art motifs on the Kel Lein Site show various purposes. One of which is human activity depicted in a figurative form. The diversity of motifs at the Kel Lein Site places this site in a vital position in studying human migration pathways. It is estimated that this site is one of the most visited posts in the past.


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