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Field Archaeology of the Royston District
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2014
Extract
The impact of a new technique upon a branch of science continues to be felt long after the first shock. Air-photography revolutionized the study of prehistoric fields and the excavation of individual sites, such as Caistor-by-Norwich, Woodhenge Arminghall, and the Ditchley Roman villa. It will, in the near future, revolutionize the study of distributions, itself quite a new subject. In my book Man and his Past (Oxford, 1921, pp. 128–153). I pointed out that the distribution-pattern of ‘loose finds,’ such as beakers and flat bronze axes, was free from the defect inherent in the distribution-pattern of objects fixed in the soil, such as megaliths, which may be removed by agricultural operations. ‘Camps’ and barrows are subject to the same limitations as indicators of population-areas; they may be destroyed by agriculture—prehistoric, mediaeval and modern; and there are many instances where such destruction is known to have occurred. They can both, however, be recovered by air-photography, which thereby rectifies the distortion of the distribution-map based solely on ground-work.
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- Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1936
References
page 97 note 1 The air-photographs began with a set taken for survey purposes in 1921, many of them at an unfavourable time of year and at a great height. Their revelations have been supplemented by Major Allen, whose photographs are also reproduced here. Major Allen has added many valuable discoveries of his own, such as the triple earthworks on Deadman's Hill which were completely unknown before this year.
page 100 note 1 Arch. J., XXV, 1868, 38 Google Scholar. An air-photograph shows signs of ancient pits here, west of the springs. The finds are described as ‘British pottery, burnt flints, stags' horns and other vestiges of the same period.’
page 101 note 1 Locally pronounced Harborough, and so spelt on the old Ordnance Maps.
page 101 note 2 For references, see Fox, , Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, pp. 190, 194 Google Scholar.
page 102 note 1 This cutting has recently been widened on the north side, and its face presents a clean and admirably clear and diagrammatic section of the Upper Chalk, with faulting and thrust-planes. At one spot an old shaft has been exposed, with a hard and compact layer of black peat-like material about a foot thick at the bottom. It contains fragments of charcoal and the chalk below it has been discoloured. It was pointed out to me by Mr C. W. Phillips, F.S.A., in May, 1936.
page 105 note 1 Proc. Prehist. Soc., 1935, pp. 101, ff.Google Scholar
page 105 note 2 As it is called everywhere except on the Ordnance Maps, where the name Therfield Heath is given.
page 105 note 3 Antiquity, VIII, 1934, 216 Google Scholar, pls. XII, XIII.
page 105 note 4 Antiquity, X, 1936, 96 Google Scholar; pl. IV.