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

• 248 • Paul Stamper
peasants. The figure is barely credible, yet plausible, and some measure of the scale of the
transformation that he has characterized as the move from memory to written record.
This vast new dataset inevitably alters the role of archaeology in the study of the later Middle
Ages, although opinion is divided in what way. Does archaeology become a tool to be used more
selectively, given that documents tell us so much? Or does the availability, as it were, of written
cross-checks open up the opportunity to have a far deeper and more critical understanding of, or
dialogue with, the archaeological evidence? That such a fundamental question remains unresolved
is a mark of the relative youth of the discipline of medieval archaeology, which, as will be seen,
developed only after the Second World War. Prehistorians had banded together to found a national
Prehistoric Society in 1935, but not until 1957, when the Society for Medieval Archaeology was
established, was there an archaeological ‘period’ society and journal for the Middle Ages. That
annual publication, Medieval Archaeology, remains the key periodical for the study of the archaeology
of the Middle Ages in north-west Europe.
The archaeological data available to the medievalist, both in range and quantity, is very similar
to that which faces the Romanist. Although in some parts of the country little pottery was in use
at the time of the Norman Conquest, by the twelfth century pottery was generally plentiful and,
it would seem, cheap—certainly the coarser unglazed wares used for cooking and storage. In the
thirteenth century, glazed vessels, especially jugs, became increasingly common and more
spectacular in decoration, and scatters of sherds in the ploughsoil remain the best indicator in the
countryside of the location of habitation sites. Excavation of such invariably recovers a wide
range of manufactured goods—tools, fixtures and fittings, and dress items—manufactured from
stone, bone, and all kinds of metal, although predominantly iron and bronze. Where soil conditions
permit, as with the sites of any period, it will also yield a wide range of environmental remains,
which can range from the bones of
oxen and horses to charred, waterlogged
or mineralized seeds. Little
of this data can be securely dated
on stylistic grounds, and even the
most distinctive forms of glazed
pottery can only be allocated, with
any confidence, to a 50-year date
band. The medievalist is therefore
fortunate that the economy was
quite heavily reliant on money, and
that even peasants close to the
bottom of the social spectrum
routinely handled, and lost into what
in time became archaeological
deposits, datable small
denomination coinage.
Figure 14.1 Pillar-and-stall coal mining exposed at Coleorton, Leicestershire,
during modern opencast operations, dated by tree-ring analysis of pit props
and shaft timbers to between 1450 and 1463. The workings are in a coal seam
3 m thick, which in the area shown is at a depth of 30 m. The long, thin
‘pillars’ of solid coal were left by the miners to support the roof. Access was
gained to the seam not from the outcrop (although this was only 250 m to the
left of the photo) but from carefully constructed timber-lined shafts sunk
vertically from the surface.
Source: R.F.Hartley, Leicestershire Museums, Arts and Records Service
The most precise dating available
to the medieval archaeologist is
dendrochronology (i.e. dating using
tree rings), although obviously that
technique is applicable only where
a standing structure with substantial
original timbers is being studied
(Figure 14.1), or where conditions