Modelling evidence densities: past population variation or modern structuring affordances
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-02-27

This paper is based upon the work of the English Landscapes and Identities Project (EngLaId) at the University of Oxford (2011-2016; ERC funded), covering material recently published as Green et al. 2016. EngLaId was a project that took a long-term approach to understanding the archaeology of the English landscape from the Middle Bronze Age (1500 BC) to the Domesday survey of AD 1086. It was a legacy data project that collated a massive amount of material from existing repositories and then used that as the basis for modelling continuities and differences across England across c. 2,500 years.
In particular, this paper will discuss differences in relative densities of evidence between (the modern country of) England in the Roman period (AD 43 – 410/1) as against the preceding Iron Age (c. 800 BC – AD 42) and succeeding early medieval periods (AD 411 – 1065). In particular, it will question the degree to which these differences (and similarities) are due to differences in past population density or due to differences in both modern recovery practices and past usage of archaeologically durable material culture. Inevitably, the answer is a little bit of both.
References:
Green, C., C. Gosden, A. Cooper, T. Franconi, L. ten Harkel, Z. Kamash & A. Lowerre. 2016. “Understanding the Spatial Patterning of English Archaeology: Modelling Mass Data, 1500 BC to AD 1086.” Archaeological Journal [online first] http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00665983.2016.1230436

Chris Green, University of Oxford