General Themes: Landscape processes, current use, and future development

Definition

Any investigation of the interaction of people and the Wolds landscape can only be based on a sound understanding of changes in the latter's physical development through time. The processes involved clearly impacted on, and were affected by, the form and timing of past human activities. In addition, landscape taphonomy directly influences present-day archaeological visibility (the distribution and survival of sites, "non-site" artefact scatters and off-site environmental deposits), and thus our interpretation of any patterning in the evidence. Finally, such information feeds into the development of present management policies for the Wolds. Hence the geoarchaeological studies needed to inform such diverse spheres must be multi-faceted, and consider both past landforms and processes and their modern counterparts.

Methods

  1. Desk top studies will employ a regressive approach to the study of landscape change, based on the assumption that many important developments will have occurred in the last 150 years, particularly during the post-war period. In the first instance, we will endeavour to create a series of snapshots:
    • the pre-enclosure landscape evidenced by documentary records (for example the Birdsall estate records utilised by Colin Hayfield);
    • the impact of enclosure, based on a study of later maps;
    • the Wolds as encountered by 19th century antiquarians, derived from their written accounts of their fieldwork and monument preservation;
    • AP evidence from WWII, providing a picture of the Wolds before the mechanisation of agriculture;
    • recent AP evidence, adding new RCHM(E) evidence to the material published by Stoertz.
  2. A parallel study of the present landscape will complement the above, involving the assessment of present soil cover (e.g. using the map data available from the Cranbourne soil survey) and the employment of current land-use categories defined by MAFF. The end product would be a form of historic landscape characterisation for the Wolds, paralleling the EH-sponsored work being undertaken in the Dales, Moors and Howardian Hills (though with a more explicit division between modern usage and relict components than is usually employed there).
  3. To give time depth to the above elements, a series of corings plus machine-cut sections will provide geomorphological data to identify phases of erosion and assess their possible causes. Additional test pitting will then allow more detailed assessment of deposit survival and degradation. Such evidence will be based around two key, linked aspects of the Wolds landscape: marginality (of land quality and potential for erosion) and hydrology (which, given the relative lack of permanent, reliable water sources, contributes to environmental marginality - here there is clear scope for productive collaboration with a fluvial geomorphologist such as Andy Howard at Newcastle).
  4. Enthnographic study would form an innovative element of the research programme. We would interview a sample of local people to elucidate present-day perceptions of the Wolds landscape, based around comments on recent landscape change, developments in agricultural regimes, and perhaps even specific knowledge of certain environmental processes such as erosion, seasonal water courses, presence of springs.
  5. To facilitate both analysis and dissemination of results, we would seek to develop an integrated GIS-based system to hold the above information, perhaps along the lines currently being constructed by Guy Hopkinson in association with the West Heslerton project.

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