Samantha Paul - Living with the Flood: Mesolithic to Post-Medieval Archaeological Remains at Mill Lane, Sawston, Cambridgeshire: A Wetland/Dryland Interface

River valleys have been a focus for human activity since the early Holocene and, in addition to providing abundant archaeological evidence for this interaction, the proximity to water also highlights the potential for the preservation of archaeological remains and palaeoenvironmental source material. However, human activity within the areas of river valleys also commonly bridges locals of both wetland and dryland; ecological areas that are often approached using quite different archaeological methods and which present considerable differences in levels of archaeological visibility and preservation. Hence, there have been few studies that have explored the interface between these two different zones as a single archaeological landscape.

This book details the results of the study at a wetland/dryland interface on the edge of palaeochannels from the River Cam in Cambridgeshire. Through the integrated archaeological and palaeoenvironmental analysis of a site to the east of Sawston, a detailed picture of life on the edge of the floodplain from the late glacial to the post-Medieval periods has been developed. At the heart of this is the relationship between people and their changing environment; a shifting pattern of occupation and more transitory activity as the riparian landscape in a wooded setting became a wetland within a more openly grazed environment. The high levels of preservation, owing to the masking effects of alluviation and colluviation, mean that the site has revealed a range of building construction processes during a variety of different periods, along with complex patterns of artefact and waste deposition.

The research at Sawston has reinforced the value of studying the archaeology of river valley landscapes, and has highlighted how, despite the challenges of archaeological visibility using traditional methods, the processes of accretion within these environments can result in considerable preservation, presenting a more detailed and complete picture of past human activity at the wetland/dryland interface.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the project

The richness of human activity within floodplain environments is well known (Brown 1997). Previous investigations within such landscapes have demonstrated how the floodplains of river systems provide considerable potential for dense levels of human activity, as seen within the valleys of the Thames (Sidell and Wilkinson 2004), the Trent (Knight and Howard 2004; Buteux and Chapman 2009) and the rivers surrounding the Humber estuary (Van de Noort 2004). In addition to the basic human need for proximity to water, rivers and their floodplains continue to demonstrate how many other human activities took place within these landscapes. From river crossings to ceremonial landscapes the wealth of landscape archaeology in these environments is well known (