A Research Framework for the Archaeology of Wales
Northwest Wales – Early Prehistoric
22/12/2003
NEOLITHIC
1. Visible, with high information potential
without excavation
2. Reasonable proportion excavation, some
within last 50 years
3. All sites protected
4. All are heavily disturbed
5. Poor survival of bone because of soil
conditions
6. Environmental contexts have changed,
difficult to reconstruct
7. Theoretical work difficult to underpin with
genuine evidence
8. Emphasis on morphological analysis
Most people
agree that 1-5 are true
9. Environmental study can be seen as a way
forward
a. As a source of primary
information from OGS etc
b. As key to understanding
motivation for location etc
10. The value of
theoretical work is judged variably
11. Geophysical
work (as in Roman fort project) is a possible way of extending information beyond the visible stone
components
This is also relevant to
Ceremonial sites.
1. Normally large; visible on APs
2. Poor earthwork survival
3. Excavation results unhelpful (few finds etc)
4. Tendency to use distant /’foreign’ site for
interpretation
There was not
much comment directly on this section
5. The change from tombs to circles was seen as
indicative of a major transition period
6. Transition periods are always important
1. Region where substantial houses may be
expected, recognisable
2. Pollen analysis available as guide to
agricultural activity
3. Sites unlikely to have been enclosed;
fieldwork identification difficult
4. Few examples; location prediction difficult
5. Discovery will be incidental; excavation
prob. ill-prepared
6. Needs large-scale stripping for recognition
7. Only sites close to other features (tombs
etc) likely to be found
Consensus / Comment (Neolithic settlement)
8. The transition Mesolithic / Neolithic should
be studied, esp. in coastal areas
9. Point 3 is debatable. Some hope CWC-type enclosures will be
recognised (on hilltops / by APs)
10. The need to
search for settlement is widely recognised.
11. Extensive
geophysics and even large scale stripping are advocated
12. Link with
burials and clues from a close study of pollen sequences may guide the search
13. Any possibility of a wetland site should be
followed up.
1. Use of stone; survival and discovery rate
likely to be high
2. Numbers quite high; distributions
meaningful
3. Flint rare; most flint found will be
significant
4. Igneous rock identifiable and traceable;
analysis of tools and pottery worthwhile
5. Much analysis has been done
6. Little arable in region; fieldwalking and
amateur collection rare / unproductive
7. Individual chance finds rather than
assemblages
8. Only stone and flint survives; no wetland
domestic site known to show full range of artefacts
Points 1-8 were
agreed
9. Many people saw the ‘flints scatters’
project as a hopeful way of finding settlement and making greater use of this
unconsidered resource.
10. The prospect of scientific analysis
(provenencing and use identifications) is seen
as a way of developing beyond typologies.
BRONZE AGE
Strengths
1. Stone architecture allows recognition of
design variation
2. Quite high proportion of the various types
excavated
3. Cremated bone now available for C14 dating
Weakness
4. Many are disturbed
5. Less distinctive sites may have been ignored
6. Poor survival of unburnt bone
7. Relatively few artefacts from graves
8. Ceremonial sites difficult to interpret even
when excavated
Bias
9. Upland survival
10.
Excavation emphasis on more exotic variations
Consensus / Comment
11. Differing opinions on the quantity and
quality of excavations and interest expressed in work on old excavation reports
reflects the lack of a corpus of barrows in Wales.
12. C14 from cremations could provide a firm
chronology if a consistent programme was set up.
13. Wales is a good area to analyse the concept
of the ‘ritual landscape’.
Strengths
1. Pollen analysis available
2. Buried land surfaces available
3. Burnt mounds and cairnfields are
recognisable in fieldwork
4. Field systems are extensive in uplands and
available for more detailed analysis
Weaknesses
5. Analysis of upland field systems has not
been done in sufficient detail
6. Cairnfield excavation difficult to interpret
and date
7. Proven houses in lowlands are slight and
wooden; upland equivalents might also be wood, rather than stone, so difficult
to recognise
8. No firm dating evidence
Bias
9. Assumption rather than proof of date in most
discussions
Consensus / Comment
10. Chronology is recognised by everyone as a
major problem.
11. NW Wales stone field systems are recognised
as a major resource not yet adequately
studied.
12. There is a need for more detailed, wall by
wall, studies as on Bodmin and at Roystone Grange.
13. Intensive small-scale, valley by valley
landscape surveys advocated.
14. APs should be used to identify lowland field
systems.
Strengths
1. Burial pottery common and susceptible to
stylistic, provenance / manufacture and poss. lipids etc analysis
2. Corpora of Beakers, Food Vessels and Pigmy
Cups exist
3. Metal resources and mines known
4. Large-scale implement analysis undertaken
5. Corpus of metal implements under way
Weaknesses
6. Domestic pottery rare (probably same as
burial, but difficult to prove)
7. Metal processing sites not known
Bias
8. Typological analysis
9. Danger of sweeping conclusions from small
database.
Consensus / Comment
10. Need to finalise corpora to allow interpretation
to develop from a firm base.
11. Few people
commented on metalwork
Paper
prepared by Frances Lynch.
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