Author

Fiona Fleming

Date

2010-2013

Project Type

PhD

Subject

Archaeology

Datasets

OS Strategi 1:25000

British Geological Survey 1:625,000

Atlas of Rural Settlement in England GIS

OS Land-Form PANORAMA 1:50,000

County Series 1846-1969 1:25,000

GIS of the Ancient Parishes of England and Wales 1500-1850

Related Subjects

Geography; Palaeoenvironmental studies; History; Agriculture; Anglo-Saxon; Roman Britain

Key Words

Landscape archaeology; GIS; Domesday; Roman; Anglo-Saxon; Britannia

Sources: Digimap; OS Opendata; HDS, UK Data Archive, University of Essex; English Heritage

Dates/Editions: County Series First Edition, first and second revision

Scale: Variable, see above.

Publishing Institution

The Fields of Britannia: landscape transition in the Roman to medieval periods, Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter

Summary

This doctoral research is affiliated with the Fields of Britannia project being undertaken at the University of Exeter and is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Through assessing patterns of Roman settlement across three major regional case studies in relation to the material evidence for occupation between the 5th to 10th centuries AD, including Domesday vills, parish churches and manors, it has been possible to illustrate aspects of settlement continuity and discontinuity from the end of the Roman period at a regional and sub-regional level. The development of a methodology that allows spatial analysis of settlement relationships through large-scale data collection from county Historic Environments Records, supported by grey literature, county journals and published regional studies has been key to this research.

Aims & Objectives

The principal aim is to undertake a broad scale spatial analysis of settlement transition between the Roman and early medieval periods across the Roman provinces of Britannia, with the objective of identifying to what extent the late Roman settlement landscape directly determined that of the early and later medieval periods, and whether coherent patterns of settlement relationship can be shown to demonstrate regional, or even sub-regional, variation.

Methodology

To assess the spatial relationship between Roman settlement and the material evidence of occupation between the 5th to 10th centuries across three major regional case-studies, including the distance to the nearest identifiable parish church, manor and Domesday vill. The results are collated according to the pays, or physical character areas, identified for each region and include an analysis of settlement in relation to soils type (using the Soils Survey of England and Wales Map 1983, which was geo-referenced into a GIS). Regional mapping has included location, geology, terrain and character regions. Mapping of settlement data has included various distribution maps and the discourse has also incorporated large-scale detail of settlement relationships set against the 1st Edition 1:25000 historic mapping as well as some re-drawing of results from site specific evaluation and excavation reports.

Results/Outcome

Whilst the final analysis of results and writing these up is still in progress, the results are beginning to demonstrate that a move away from the heavier, or poorer, soils probably occurred from the end of the Roman period, although the scale of this move shows some regional variation. On areas of better soils, and principally within favoured areas for settlement, the picture is more one of potential continuity, with the pattern of Roman settlement significantly informing that of the early medieval period, albeit with some evidence for localised shift, principally between the 7th to 10th centuries. This is not to dismiss the possibility of continued resettlement in such favoured areas, although where continuous chronologies of occupation can be demonstrated, this is, perhaps, less contentious. From around the 10th century, the expansion of settlement back across the heavier, or poorer, soils may well have resulted in the re-occupation of former Roman settlement sites, although this does not preclude potential continuity in some instances where longer chronologies of occupation are present. Genuine patterns of abandonment and re-occupation between the 5th to 10th centuries, however, are potentially obscured across these areas in some instances. Although the material evidence for occupation between the 5th to 10th centuries is absent from many parts of the country, such as Somerset, for example, the research has been able to suggest effective methods of broad scale analysis that go some way towards bridging the traditional divide between Roman and early medieval settlement studies and informing our understanding of the nature of settlement transition from the end of the Roman period, both at a regional, and sub-regional level.

References & Acknowledgements

Project Supervisor: Professor Stephen Rippon, University of Exeter