Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction and the example of the Nile
- PART I PRINCIPLES
- PART II APPLICATION
- 5 Artifacts from floodplains and rivers
- 6 The rise and fall of forested floodplains in North-West Europe
- 7 Buried sites
- 8 Managed floodplains
- 9 The cultural archaeology of floodplains
- 10 People, floodplains and environmental change
- APPENDICES
- References
- Subject Index
- Index of rivers and sites
7 - Buried sites
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction and the example of the Nile
- PART I PRINCIPLES
- PART II APPLICATION
- 5 Artifacts from floodplains and rivers
- 6 The rise and fall of forested floodplains in North-West Europe
- 7 Buried sites
- 8 Managed floodplains
- 9 The cultural archaeology of floodplains
- 10 People, floodplains and environmental change
- APPENDICES
- References
- Subject Index
- Index of rivers and sites
Summary
This chapter considers the alluviation and the burial of floodplain surfaces and sites that is such a common feature of the later Holocene in many different climatic environments. Just as the record is spatially variable so too are the causes and particularly the balance between the human and climatic signal contained within the alluvial record.
Late Bronze Age and Iron Age alluviation in the British Isles
From the Bronze Age onwards in the lowlands of North-West Europe, floodplain and fen-margin sites reveal evidence for increased flooding and alluviation. The picture is much less clear for upland sites (Richards, et al., 1987). This is partly due to the lack of preserved archaeological sites on the valley floors and the more dynamic response of upland rivers to individual storms. Before describing some of the evidence for lowland alluviation, it is worth considering the types of data that may be available, other than a dated increase in overbank-silt deposition. First, pedological data: a lack of soil development and soil structure, caused by a lack of bioturbation and soil development. Soil micromorphology frequently reveals a decrease in pedological fabric and an increase in unbioturbated sedimentary micro-features (Limbrey, 1992). This could be caused by an increase in flood frequency and/or an increase in the sediment loading of overbank flows. The former is probably more important than the latter as fine sediment is supply- rather than transport-limited although both may be the result of climate and land use change.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Alluvial GeoarchaeologyFloodplain Archaeology and Environmental Change, pp. 219 - 253Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997