With the Current Emphasis on Defining Research Frameworks in British

THE HESLERTON PARISH PROJECT AN INTEGRATED MULTI-SENSOR APPROACH TO THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY OF EASTERN YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND

«There are certain regions of the British Isles which have long been recognized as areas of primary archaeological importance. One of these, Eastern Yorkshire, comprises three distinct geomorphological areas: the North York Moors, the Vale of Pickering and the Yorkshire Wolds. Archaeological work has been in progress in the area since the late 18th Century and the work of pioneers such as Greenwell (1897) and Mortimer (1905) has been fundamental in developing the basic corpus of information which now forms an es sential element in the literature of prehistoric studies. Subsequent work by Brewster (1952, 1957, 1963 and 1981), Manby (1974, 1975 and 1980) and others has developed this body of information and clearly emphasized the traditional view of the area’s importance, par ticularly in the field of British Prehistory. The Heslerton Parish Project was established to provide a framework for major ar chaeological work, both rescue and research, into which the evolution of the landscape of Eastern Yorkshire, an area of established national significance, could be placed. At this time, references to assessments of the prehistoric and Anglian evidence emphasized the sepulchral bias: Longworth (1961), Simpson (1968), Clarke (1970), Cunliffe (1974) and Rahtz, Dickinson, Watts (1980). It was also clear from statements made by the Prehistoric Society in 1978, that a number of archaeological bodies were developing a “landscape strategy”. They stated that it was vital «…to establish as wide a range as is possible of environmental, economic, chronological and social evidence.» The general statement was qualified by a number of conditions which should be met in the selection of “nationally important projects”. These included sites with well preserved organic material, sites sealed beneath alluvial, colluvial or aeolian deposits, sites where environmental, economic or structural evidence is preserved and settlement or cemetery sites where total or substantial excavation is possible. Work carried out at Sherburn and West Heslerton had indicated that most if not all of those conditions could be satisfied by the parishes along the southern edge of the Vale, while suitable sites satisfying the wide range of conditions must be rare on either the Wolds or the Moors.»

From ‘The Heslerton Parish Project’ distributed manuscript, Yedingham 1980 With the current emphasis on defining research frameworks in British archaeology it is easy to forget that in many parts of the country integrated research frameworks have formed the basis for ongoing archaeological projects for more than two decades. In the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, two such projects have been in progress for more than twenty years: the work of the Vale of Pickering Research Trust at Seamer and Flixton Carrs, being car ried out under the direction of Tim Schadla-Hall, and the work of the Land scape Research Centre around West Heslerton following a research design ‘The Heslerton Parish Project’ produced in 1980 (POWLESLAND 1980). In both

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 1 these cases remarkable results of national and international importance have resulted from these projects. At Heslerton it was already felt, by the end of the 1970’s, that rural rescue excavations undertaken without a solid and broad based research de sign addressing the context of the archaeology being examined would have a greatly reduced value. During the late 1970’s the threats to archaeology from development both in the town and the countryside far outstripped the avail able resources for rescue excavation from the Department of the Environ ment (DOE). There had been a tendency during the middle 1970’s to simply dig sites because they were there and threatened, and the limitations im posed by available funding meant that many important sites were destroyed unnoticed while other lesser sites were being examined elsewhere. This was a contributing factor in the development, at that time, of the first County Sites and Monuments Records (SMR), created to quantify, identify and lo cate all known archaeological resources within each county, a resource which, if used during the planning process, could prevent the loss of major sites. A fundamental and intractable weakness of this approach, one even more appar ent today under the ‘polluter pays’ provisions made through Planning Policy Guidance note 16 (PPG16), is that SMRs have generally been reactive rather than pro-active, containing information relating to known sites rather than the results of active landscape assessments designed to identify the unknown components and their potential. There are few locations in Britain where an absence of recorded evidence within an SMR can be correlated with a genu ine absence of archaeology.

The Heslerton Parish Project: Towards a contextual understanding of an ancient landscape

The Heslerton Parish Project (HPP) was designed to combine rescue excavation with a landscape assessment programme covering a 10 km by 10 km area, spanning the interface between two major landscape zones, the Vale of Pickering and the Yorkshire Wolds, through the application of intensive remote sensing, field observation and discussion with local farmers and thus gain a greater understanding of the landscape context of the multi-period deposits being examined as part of the on-going rescue archaeology pro gramme. It was argued from the outset that the detailed examination, assess ment and interpretation of the landscape archaeology of the Heslerton Par ish Project area would provide information that was relevant to a much more extensive area, extending both to the east and to the west, along the south ern side of the Vale of Pickering where similar geology, soils, environment and topography prevail; this has indeed proved the case. The physical and ecological uniformity of the landscape between the River Derwent in the

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 2 middle of the Vale of Pickering and the Great Wold Valley 15km. to the south is such that the research area defined at Heslerton comprises a repre sentative sample of this extensive landscape. The Anglian Settlement excavation at West Heslerton was amongst the first projects to receive funding from English Heritage on a project funding basis (POWLESLAND 1998). The threat to the site in this case was from plough damage; this remains the most widespread and significant physical threat to the rural archaeology of lowland England. A conscious decision was made by English Heritage to excavate rather than to preserve the Anglian settlement at West Heslerton as an example of such a site in the North of England. Although the site was being physically eroded by ploughing, the case for excavation was based substantially upon national academic priorities rather than simply a rescue imperative. Although a large part of the energy and resources invested in the Heslerton Parish Project have been directed towards the excavations of an Early to Middle Saxon settlement and an associated Early Saxon or Anglian cemetery, the project remains multi-period and multi-faceted in its objec tives, concerned primarily with the evolution of the Human Landscape from the Mesolithic to Mediaeval periods (POWLESLAND, HAUGHTON, HANSON 1986; POWLESLAND, HAUGHTON 1999). One aspect of the project is probably more important than any other – the continuity, duration and focus of the project over more than 20 years. The project has been fortunate in gaining repeated support from English Heritage and its predecessor organisations, initially through the rescue archaeology programme, and more recently from the ar chaeology commissions programme; without this support none of the work undertaken over the last two decades would have been possible. Although attention has been primarily focussed upon the very large scale open area excavations, for which Heslerton has become well known, running hand in hand with this fieldwork a programme of regular air-photographic sorties undertaken over a 15 year period, a high resolution multi-spectral scan of much of the project area, resulting from a NERC data award, and a series of relatively small scale targeted geophysical surveys have radically transformed our understanding of the landscape (DONOGHUE, SHENNAN 1988a, 1988b; DONOGHUE, POWLESLAND, PRYOR 1992; POWLESLAND, LYALL, DONOGHUE 1997). The high levels of investment in the archaeology of Heslerton has resulted in a huge increase in the known archaeology within the project area. The parish morphology both to the north and south of the River Derwent in the centre of the Vale shows a remarkable uniformity, and although those parishes to the north of the river are quite different to those to the south, incorporating a far larger upland component, in both cases they seem to reflect economically viable and roughly equal areas of the two different prin cipal ecological resources from the lowland and upland areas. Only Yedingham, a monastic parish supported by revenues generated from the river crossing

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 3 and lands situated beyond the parish, and perhaps from barge traffic on the River Derwent, does not conform to this pattern. Yedingham was the highest navigable point on the river during the nineteenth century, although little is known about the state and use of the river in earlier periods. Although the choice of Heslerton as the focus for a long term landscape research project was reactive rather than pro-active, attention being focussed on the area following the discovery of the Anglian cemetery during mineral extraction, its central location along the southern side of the Vale of Pickering and an examination of the parish morphology (Fig. 1) and geomorphology (Fig. 2) across the Wolds-Vale interface indicated that the area could form a good representative sample for a much more extensive landscape, a land scape that spanned physical as well as ecological zones perfectly suited for human occupation. The Heslerton Parish Project utilised a landscape transect (Fig. 3) to provide a theoretical and visual mechanism for encapsulating the evidence across the project research area. The transect provided a simple mechanism for presenting the combined evidence of geomorphology, topography and ar chaeology. By bringing together evidence form a 10 km. wide swath extend ing to either side of the transect line a schematic view of the landscape could be constructed reflecting both land-use and, with respect to some activities, period as well. After twenty years of research, the combination of soils, relief and wa ter sources which form the foundations of the local ecology remain, not surprisingly, largely unchanged, with the exception of the peat deposits which continue to dry out at an alarming rate as a consequence of intensive drain age and water abstraction from the River Derwent. However, our interpreta tion has evolved, reflecting the greatly enhanced resolution and density of the available data set. The six geomorphological zones characterised in 1980 still provide an effective framework with which to view the landscape; only in one zone, Zone 6, has a fundamental reinterpretation been required. The characteristics of these landscape zones are summarised below.

ZONE ONE - THE WOLD TOP The largest zone comprises an area of open chalk downland covering the northern ridge of the Yorkshire Wolds and the more gradual slope to wards the Great Wold Valley to the south. It is defined to the north by the 150 m contour and elsewhere by dry valleys containing extensive deposits of alluvial sands and gravels frequently capped by colluvium (Zone 1A). Exca vations undertaken by Canon Greenwell and J.R. Mortimer during the late nineteenth century established Eastern Yorkshire and particularly the York shire Wolds as an area of importance second only to Wessex in the literature pertaining to British prehistory (GREENWELL, ROLLESTON 1877; MORTIMER 1905;

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 4 CLARKE 1970; MANBY 1974, 1975, 1980, 1999). The archaeology of this zone is most dramatically demonstrated by the upstanding monuments, the ditch and bank systems (the Wold Entrenchments) and the barrows. All of these upstanding monuments are now severely denuded but include major sites such as the East Heslerton long-barrow, the second longest long-barrow in England, partially excavated by the Vatchers in the 1960’s (F. VATCHER, I. VATCHER 1965). Intensive agriculture during the last 50 years has had a mas sive impact on this monument half of which is now levelled, although re cently this part has been taken out of agriculture; the western half still stands about two metres high but is further eroded by ploughing every year. The extent of modern erosion is indicated by the wealth of levelled crop mark sites of similar features and the very shallow topsoils that characterise the Wolds. Only beneath the upstanding earthworks or beneath colluvial de posits in the dry valleys is any stratigraphy likely to have survived, though important environmental deposits must be preserved beneath the banks of the Entrenchments. Though this system of major boundary works has clearly had an influence on the land division of the chalk areas for a very long period of time, they remain an enigma, having been the subject of only minimal exami nation. Salvage excavation undertaken immediately adjacent to a section of the Wold Entrenchments in 1995 revealed fourth century occupation adjacent to this monument; however, the discovery of this activity during the levelling and extension of a farm yard did not provide sufficient evidence to gain a good understanding of the extent and full nature of the deposits. Although many upstanding monuments survive, these have contributed to the myth that bar rows in particular were deliberately sited on ridges where their presence would remain most obvious. This may of course in some cases be true; however, the large number of barrows now identified in the low lying environment of the Vale of Pickering indicates that this model only has limited application. The East Heslerton Long Barrow (Fig. 4) for instance is sited below the Wold edge in a position only visible from very limited fields of view. The intensive air photography and multi-spectral survey have added far less to the archaeologi cal canvas of the Wolds than to any other area within the HPP research area. It has become very clear that the key areas of activity lie in and adjacent to the Great Wold Valley where water was provided by the now all but disappeared Gypsy Race. Elsewhere the build up of colluvium in the dry valleys may have preserved important fragments of old ground surfaces which offer some long term potential for the recovery of environmental data spanning long sequences.

ZONE TWO - THE WOLD SCARP This zone, contained by the 150 m and 90 m contours, incorporates the steep, north facing scarp of the Wolds, where the steep incline has restricted the development and build up of fertile soils. That this zone is of consider-

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 5 able archaeological importance, despite the restrictions imposed by local ge ography, is demonstrated by the situation of two important Late Bronze/ Early Iron Age palisaded enclosures on steep-sided knolls within this zone, at Staple Howe and Devil’s Hill (BREWSTER 1963, 1981; CUNLIFFE, ROWLEY 1978). Similar sites can be postulated at regular intervals both to the east and to the west of the research zone and are likely to respond to geomagnetic survey ing. The relationship between these small defended sites and the open areas of contemporary settlement in the base of the valley, and the relationship of both of these components to the early phases of the Wold Entrenchment system deserves further examination. It is tempting to see these sites as high status components in a Late Bronze Age estate structure defined by large pit alignment boundaries that were later replaced by bank and ditch features. The potential for the identification of well preserved sections of these pit alignments on the Wolds is now very limited and their identification and preservation through scheduling should be given a priority. A single example identified from the air at Cat Babbleton, Foxholes parish, has since been levelled by bulldozer.

ZONE THREE - THE WOLD FOOT This zone spans the basal red chalk and the Speeton clay deposits, and is located between the 90 m and 50 m contours. The presence of the spring line at the junction of the chalk and the clay gives the zone a particularly high potential. Both the present day villages of East and West Heslerton are centered in this zone. A number of buried or relict stream channels are indicated by aerial photography of the area. The potential of this zone for the recovery of important settlement evidence with the added potential for areas that remain relatively well preserved beneath a combination of colluvium and aeolian deposits has been admirably demonstrated by the discovery and excavation of the West Heslerton Anglian settlement (POWLESLAND 1998, 2000). The potential for the recovery of important new evidence from this zone cannot be doubted; however, the very conditions that lead to good preservation limit the potential for the recovery of airborne data either through conven tional air photography or multi-spectral surveying. In contrast, the position with reference to archaeomagnetic surveying is very good; the remarkable results of the geophysical surveys undertaken on the Anglian settlement both by English Heritage and the Landscape Research Centre reflect the high mag netic contrasts that occur on the chalk and suggest that a proactive campaign targeting likely locations for settlement would produce results. It is worth noting that field walking over the area of the Anglian settlement failed to produce any indication of what lay beneath; the evidence recovered com prised mostly Neolithic and Bronze Age worked flints and mediaeval pot tery, the latter probably derived from night-soils.

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 6 ZONE FOUR - THE AEOLIAN DEPOSITS Zone four was defined by the rescue excavations of 1977-1985 (Heslerton sites 1 and 2), and consists of areas of windblown sand which serve to conceal and protect old ground surfaces and structural remains, with depths of up to three metres in places POWLESLAND et al. 1986). The blown sands, which are derived from a much more extensive deposit of post glacial sands and gravels beneath them and to the north, have been accumulating since the late Neolithic period at least, though the mechanics of the process over time are far from perfectly understood. Crop mark evidence is unreli able here due to the great depth of overburden, while field walking cannot hope to give details of activity sealed well below the plough soil. Remote sensing and geophysical surveying can give reliable results when the wind blown sand cover is restricted to depths of less than a metre, but for the deeper deposits only chance discovery during destruction coupled with in tensive fieldwork can be used to assess the full potential of the sealed depos its. Although the blanket of blown sand, which remains the principal charac teristic of this zone, has afforded the archaeological deposits a high degree of protection, the environmental preservation in this environment is very low, animal bone rarely survives and pollen counts are negligible; stratigraphic preservation is on the other hand high. The discovery during excavations at Cook’s Quarry of a series of round barrows, surviving in one case with its mound effectively intact, gave the first indication that the distribution of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age funerary monuments was not primarily focussed on the Wold edge.

ZONE FIVE - THE DRY VALE An area of post glacial sand and gravel, zone five is bounded to the south by the overlying aeolian sand deposits and to the north by the lacustrine clays of zone six. Crop mark evidence indicates that this area of light soils experienced the same level of activity recognizable in zone four, and suggest that they cover a number of periods. Central to this zone is a continuous series of ladder settlements and field systems (of late Iron Age/Romano-Brit- ish date) which can be traced for about 15 km along the 27 to 30 m contour lines in the southern part of the Vale. There is a corresponding ladder settle ment in the northern part of the Vale, although this settlement is not so well attested by the aerial photographic evidence. Possible gaps in the aerial pho tographic record may indicate particularly well preserved areas of the settle ment, covered by aeolian deposits, while particularly well-defined areas, where even individual hut circles can be identified, may prove to be the most seri ously damaged by modern agricultural methods. The combination of air and ground based remote sensing in this zone produces remarkably detailed re-

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 7 sults. The results of fluxgate gradiometer surveys in this area are far better than we would have anticipated in a sand and gravel environment, perhaps reflecting the presence of iron pans in the filled enclosure ditches which excavation indicates had frequently been wet.

ZONE SIX - THE WET VALE Zone six incorporates the small parish of Yedingham, and comprises a large flat area of lacustrine clays and gravels, frequently cut by relict, and now peat filled stream channels and including a number of slightly elevated gravel islands. Although Zone six would have supported a fenland environ ment during the later prehistoric period, successive drainage schemes, par ticularly during the last century, have dried out the greater part of the area in order to facilitate the present intensive arable farming. The results of con ventional air photography in this area were always patchy; however this area responded very well to the multi-spectral survey, particularly in the ther mal and infra-red wavelengths, and the picture that we have today is radi cally different from that established in the early 1980’s. The areas ini tially identified as isolated islands can now be shown to form parts of a series of low ridges running from east to west which were intensively used during the later prehistoric period for burial, indicated by the presence of both round and square barrow cemeteries. A series of trackways have now been identified that link these sites together or run south to north towards Yedingham where there have been river crossings since the later prehistoric pe riod. From an archaeological point of view the drainage and intensification of agriculture in the centre of the Vale of Pickering has been a disaster; isolated pockets of peat may still provide us with key environmental evidence, particu larly if they can be found in association with recognisable landscape boundaries; however, these areas are rapidly drying out which, coupled with the use of chemical fertilisers, will quickly lead to the loss of the pollen record; pro active assessment of the potential is urgently required.

The Integrated Remote Sensing Programme

It was argued from the outset that if the HPP was to provide real ben efits beyond those resulting from the rescue excavations, then extensive re mote sensing was a fundamental component. After more than 20 years this view has not changed; however, the extensive air-photographic programme initiated at the start of the project has now been enhanced through the appli cation of new airborne survey technologies, and a programme of extensive detailed ground based geophysical survey has begun to add resolution and definition to the evidence identified from the air (Tav. XI, a).

Whilst for many, Heslerton is synonymous with vast open area excava tions and the application of on-site computerised recording systems, the in vestigation of the wider landscape has remained a fundamental research ob jective in the overarching research strategy. Following the start of fieldwork at Cook’s Quarry in 1978 (POWLESLAND et al. 1986) an air photographic pro gramme was instigated on an amateur basis by the present author, the author is indebted to the late Carl Wilkonson, a local farmer without whose enthu siastic flying and observations this work would not have been possible. With a landing strip within 2km. of the excavations and a pilot who looked out for crop marks during every flight, alerting us when conditions were suitable, it was possible to fly at almost any time. The arrangements established with Carl Wilkinson were perfect for archaeological air photography; there was little need for prior booking of the plane, with the possibility of missed flights due to weather conditions, and flights could often be undertaken within twenty minutes notice. Moreover, with the plane based within the project research area, we could cover the whole area, block flying in both N-S and E-W direc tions in about half an hour. The Vale of Pickering is an area subject to sea frets (mists) during the summer and can be a difficult area to predict flying conditions. Our objectives were to record any crop-mark formation at all regardless of quality; this is important since the frequent summer mists re strict the development of crop-marks. The flying programme began in earnest in 1979 and continued, initially with many flights a year, until 1995 (Fig. 5). This approach, which we might call saturation coverage, produced diminishing returns of new data after about five years, although active plough damage produced on occasion stunning new evidence in fields that had been intensively studied over a number of years and shown little. By the late 1980’s it was realised that although excep tional climatic or agricultural conditions might reveal either new or more detailed evidence, the air photographic record was substantially complete and new methods would have to be sought if we were to gain new evidence.

Airborne Multi-Spectral survey

The diminishing returns from conventional oblique air photography meant that we had to look towards alternative technology if we were to expand on the already fairly comprehensive crop-mark evidence. Of particu lar interest was the potential for the recovery of new data from non-visible wave lengths in the near infra-red and thermal parts of the spectrum (DONO- GHUE, SHENNAN 1988a, 1988b). We were fortunate that in 1992 we were awarded a National Environmental Research Council (NERC) data award comprising a high resolution multi-spectral data-set. The data was collected

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 9 using an airborne Deadalus 12-band multi-spectral scanner, with an effective ground resolution of c.2 m, operated by the NERC. High resolution colour vertical photographs were taken in tandem with the multi-spectral scan gen erating two important new data-sets (DONOGHUE, POWLESLAND, PRYOR 1992; LYALL, POWLESLAND 1996; POWLESLAND, LYALL, DONOGHUE 1997). Conditions beyond our control delayed the data collection flights from the proposed date during the spring until the early summer; in retrospect, this was benefi cial as the flights were undertaken during June when conventional crop marks were already well formed. This single survey contributed a wealth of new data filling spatial gaps in the landscape and provided, in some areas, enhanced detail (Fig. 6). The high resolution vertical photographs combined to provide contiguous cover over most of the project area at a time of peak crop-mark visibility, something not possible from the oblique photographic records. The multi-spectral data in addition revealed new information from sites such as those under pasture, which had not been visible using conven tional air photography and, with its increased sensitivity to crop moisture content, provided detailed indications of relict water courses in the centre of the Vale forcing a radical re-consideration of the landscape history of the centre of the Vale. High resolution multi-spectral airborne scanning is a rela tively new tool in the archaeologist’s tool kit and the data processing re quired as part of the analytical and integration process is not insignificant. Since this work was undertaken major advances in on-board processing, par ticularly with reference to geo-referencing and compensation for distortions arising from variations of yaw and pitch of the aircraft, mean that new data has a much reduced post-collection processing overhead. By comparison with low-resolution data, such as that collected by the Landsat and SPOT satel lites, high–resolution multi-spectral data is very spectrally rich and does not lend itself to simple classification or feature extraction using current soft ware. Data evaluation and feature identification can realistically only be un dertaken by eye, preferably using monochrome rather than false colour im agery. Although the ground resolution of this data is still low relative to data collected photographically, features as small as a metre across will show if they exhibit sufficient contrast with the areas around them.

Ground-Based Geophysics

By 1990 it was realised that although the picture emerging from the many sorties in light aircraft was surprisingly comprehensive, there were many gaps within what appeared to be continuous feature complexes and, in many cases, although the bare bones of a complex could be identified, detail was lacking. It was felt that ground based remote-sensing, particularly using a fluxgate-gradiometer and resistance meter, might offer new avenues for data

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 10 collection and site clarification. Limited results from surveys undertaken in the 1980’s were not encouraging; however, a series of surveys undertaken by English Heritage during and after 1990 showed that astonishing results could be obtained on the chalk using a gradiometer. A series of sample areas were selected during 1993-4 to test the suitability of these techniques in areas where the various airborne surveys had identified major complexes but pro vided only limited detail. The fluxgate gradiometer proved in every case to produce outstanding results, even in areas dominated by sands and gravels that theoretically should not have produced such good results (Figs. 7-9). This work is currently in progress and it is hoped over the next few years that we will manage to undertake a complete magnetic survey of more than 500Ha of contiguous landscape following the margins of the wetlands that in antiquity existed in the centre of the Vale of Pickering. Although much of the fieldwork undertaken in Heslerton has been un dertaken under the banner of ‘rescue archaeology’ there has always been an experimental component; only through experimentation and application can we hope to improve our methodologies and thus data recovery and interpre tive potential. A series of experiments utilising high-resolution gradiometer surveys as part of the excavation process have been very highly successful. By undertaking surveys at 25 m resolution in both the x and y axes following the removal of the plough-soil, which acts as a giant magnetic filter, it was shown that comprehensive site plans could be generated at the very start of the excavation. Stratigraphic relationships between major enclosure com plexes could, in a number of cases, be readily identified on the geophysical surveys long before they were visible on the ground (Figs. 10-11).

Putting the results in context

Without objective sampling to recover evidence of date and activity range, relative importance and state of preservation, we must interpret the evidence recovered through the remote sensing programme with a degree of caution. It would be easy, for instance, to interpret a clear and well defined crop mark site as offering a higher degree of potential than a poorer defined group of crop mark fragments, and yet the contrary is more likely to be correct, the high quality crop mark being produced in an environment where plough damage has eroded any occupation surfaces such that the contrast is simply between plough damaged natural and ditched features. The Anglian settlement at West Heslerton, for instance, included a substantial area of ditched enclosures extending over about 4Ha. and yet these never showed as crop marks despite frequent favourable conditions; following the excavation this is easy to understand since where these enclosures were best preserved, they and the associated surface deposits were sealed beneath hill-wash. In those areas where plough damage had taken place the features were severely

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 11 truncated, reducing the likelihood of good crop mark formation. Another factor in crop mark formation observed in the project area was the sudden appearance in one year of well defined crop marks in a field where none had been noticed in the same crop before, despite the presence of other crop marks in the fields around it; discussion with the farmer revealed that the only change in the agricultural regime was that the field had been ploughed ‘a little more deeply’. In this case it appears that active plough damage has contributed to good quality crop mark formation, perhaps breaking up soil pans at the interface between the ploughed and undisturbed soils which have otherwise generally restricted root development and therefore good crop mark formation. Elsewhere in the research area the ‘ladder settlement,’ ex tending for many kilometres along the southern side of the Vale, was initially identified from the air through a series of crop mark fragments; even after nearly twenty years of intensive survey there are gaps in the crop mark record which reflect areas of deeper overburden and probably better preserved ar chaeology rather than actual gaps in the settlement, changes in soils or geol ogy or the lack of suitable crops for crop mark formation. There has been little opportunity to undertake extensive field-walking surveys; however, in the case of the Anglian settlement, which extended over more than 20Ha., there was no indication on the surface of what lay beneath. In the case of the field, cited above, that produced the ‘sudden’ crop mark, the surface of the field was covered with Roman ceramics and other material and yet in follow ing years there was hardly any material at all. In contrast to the emerging landscape picture derived from the various remote sensing approaches (Fig. 9), the large excavations at Cook’s Quarry and of the Anglian cemetery and settlement to the south have provided com prehensive and detailed new evidence which has a bearing both on the local and the national understanding of aspects of the archaeology of the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, Roman and Early-Middle Anglo- Saxon periods. For the Early Anglo-Saxon period the evidence is unparal leled in the North of England. The excavation of the Anglian settlement and the recent identification, using remote sensing, of a second such site of simi lar size within 2.5 km of that at West Heslerton, reveals a surprisingly densely populated and utilised landscape in the Early Saxon period at least.

The excavated evidence

There is insufficient space here to discuss the results of the last 23 years of excavation in Heslerton; this can be gleaned from the publications avail able and in progress. These excavations, which have included the examination of more than 22 Ha in a series of large open area excavations, have required the development of a comprehensive and uniform data collection and manage ment strategy. The project has been highly computerised since 1980, with stand-

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 12 ard databases and record structures applied to all sites. Since 1984 almost all primary data has been logged directly using hand-held computers in the field; all artefacts, ecofacts, and samples have been three dimensionally recorded using an EDM since 1994. All plans are digitised and section drawings scanned for publication without wasteful redrawing of field drawings. Since 1995, new approaches to archive management have been adopted using HTML docu ments for collating and storing web-enabled synthetic archives, thus bringing together the full range of available data in a readily accessible format.

Integrating the data

The data-intensive nature and landscape scale of the HPP has contrib uted more than anything else towards the development of a core data man agement tool allowing the whole dataset to be manipulated in a single envi ronment. At no stage during the life of the project have off-the-shelf tools been available that would allow for the incorporation of the full dataset and its interactive manipulation. The only solution has been to write the appro priate software; G-Sys which is the product of thousands of hours of pro gramming at weekends and evenings, has been written by the author to pro vide the fully integrated data environment required for day to day data man agement and analysis. Databases are now managed using Microsoft Access which integrates well with G-Sys, which provides a GIS-based management framework. Key components are the ability to handle simultaneously the large amount of image data in rasta format (the vertical air-photos, multi spectral imagery, surface and sub-surface models and geophysical data), some 200mb of 3D vector data (air-photo interpretive plots, basic maps, and exca vation plans) and c.40,000 database records covering context, object, envi ronmental and survey data. Data at any scales can be incorporated together in a single working environment, allowing the project team to look at the whole landscape or zoom in upon a single skeleton in a grave, and interro gate the feature to see full lists of contexts and finds returned which can then be saved in HTML format. As the project is now in a major publication phase, considerable attention has been paid to the need to produce publica tion graphics at high resolution and absolute scales directly from the archive without any need for re-drawing.

Conclusions

The work undertaken in Heslerton over the last 23 years has demon strated the benefits of long-term commitment to the reconstruction of ar chaeological landscapes. The combination of large-scale open area excava tions, extensive and intensive multi-sensor remote sensing has allowed us to

©2003 Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio - vietata la riproduzione e qualsiasi utilizzo a scopo commerciale – 13 build up an exceptionally detailed picture of a landscape that at the start of the project was considered largely an empty wasteland. This work, made possible by continued support from the national body charged with securing a future for the nations past, English Heritage, is not a product of massive investment so much as dogged determination. It is, in this authors view, im possible to understand a landscape with fleeting visits and ‘holiday digs’ only through long term immersion and engagement both with the landscape and it’s nuances can we hope to gain real insight. The widespread co-operation and interest of the landowners, farmers and other members of the commu nity who are part of this landscape ensure that this process of assessment, evaluation and re-assessment are more than simply an intellectual exercise. The future of in situ archaeology in England is under constant threat through changes in agriculture, industrial and commercial development; its preserva tion and interpretation cannot be secured simply through legislation cover ing dots on distribution maps. The Heslerton Parish Project is concerned with gaining understanding rather than data mapping, however, without se cure data collection, compilation and management strategies it would have been impossible to have approached the understanding we have today. After nearly 25 years of careful attention we can at least see the skeleton of a human landscape densely utilised, managed and occupied since the end of the Mesolithic period. It may take another 25 years to put the flesh of detail upon that skeleton. If we are to flesh out this frame then we need to populate the landscape, we need to add chronological, social, and intellectual preci sion to the mapped features and develop a dialogue with the evidence that focuses not on the ‘site’ – a barrow, an enclosure or other single component – but with the evolving landscape as a whole. Even in the 21st century, when change is happening faster than ever, the landscape may seem to many, a static and therefore secure component of our lives. It is the dynamic associa tion of geology, ecology, climate and humanity that is perhaps the main rea son for this authors interest in archaeology at all. Heslerton is in most as pects un-exceptional, there is little here that you could not find in many other parts of England. If the results of this work seem impressive or indica tive of some exceptional landscape then it is because of the application a small group of individual expertise, to one single long term project, rather than some other inherently special feature of this part of Eastern Yorkshire that has made it so impressive.

DOMINIC POWLESLAND

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