The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

British archaeology since 1945
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The environmental dimension
The degree to which the land and environments of Britain have been shaped and reshaped by
previous human communities across millennia is becoming apparent through the investigation
of some components of these landscape palimpsests, in concert with parallel, sometimes integrated,
studies by palaeoenvironmentalists. Many approaches are now available, and many sub-disciplines
—including the study of sub-fossil midges, beetles, pollen and plant macrorests, and aspects of
geomorphology—contribute; dendrochronology, as well as furnishing absolute chronology, is
important also for studies of climate change. A substantial literature has been generated and is
summarized in numerous works (e.g. Evans 1975; Simmons and Tooley 1981; Bell and Walker
1992; for Wales, Taylor 1980; for Scotland, Edwards and Ralston 1997). In general, the integration
of environmental and archaeological studies has been taken further for prehistory than for
subsequent periods, but exceptions to this rule are becoming ever more frequent, notably in the
analysis of urban deposits. Because of the enhanced possibilities of preservation they offer, and
the particular scope for the integration of archaeological and environmental studies, threatened
examples of Britain’s wetlands have been particular targets for archaeological study (Coles 1992).
These include more especially lowland peat mosses and estuarine and other inter-tidal zones.
Particularly influential work, such as that undertaken in the Somerset levels and at Flag Fen, near
Peterborough, is mentioned in the succeeding chapters.
CHANGING PERSPECTIVES
Equally relevant are the various ways by which archaeologists have believed the past can be
studied. These have implications for the way in which archaeology is conducted in the field, and
there have been a number of reassessments of what archaeological approaches to the physical
record bequeathed by earlier communities may be able to achieve. Intellectual fashions have
changed, not only as some archaeologists have absorbed theoretical developments in neighbouring
disciplines in the social sciences and elsewhere, but also as they reconsider the nature and potential
meanings of the structures and materials contained within the emerging archaeological record.
Such ‘changing configurations’ (Renfrew 1974) have perhaps been most prominent in the study
of prehistory, not least because its ‘text-free’ status—the absence of contemporary historical
documents—means that archaeologists do not have a perceived requirement to integrate their
studies at a variety of levels with those of historians and others.
In later periods, these changes in theoretical stance met greater resistance, partly in view of
traditional approaches based on artefact typology, and partly through the presence of the written
record which enabled the material past to be artificially compartmentalized. Also, the more recent
the period, the shorter in general has been the tradition of independent archaeological research.
An indication of this is offered by the foundation dates for the major period-based societies in
Britain, those for medieval, post-medieval and industrial archaeology being amongst the most
recent, whereas the prehistoric has (along with the Roman) been one of the periods with the
longest traditions of archaeological study and investigation.
Culture history
In the 1950s, the dominant framework for prehistoric studies was provided by the culturalhistorical
approach, most usually associated in Britain with Vere Gordon Childe, Professor at Edinburgh
from 1927, and subsequently at the Institute of Archaeology in London University. This perspective
prevailed until the 1960s; its great achievements included the fuller recognition and ordering of
archaeological assemblages, in part through more extensive and systematic excavation.