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The alluvial geoarchaeology of the upper River Kennet in the Avebury landscape: a monumental transformation of a stable landscape

The alluvial geoarchaeology of the upper River Kennet in the Avebury landscape: a monumental transformation of a stable landscape
The alluvial geoarchaeology of the upper River Kennet in the Avebury landscape: a monumental transformation of a stable landscape
Geoarchaeological research as part of the AHRC-funded Living with Monuments (LwM) project investigated the upper Kennet river system across the Avebury World Heritage landscape. The results demonstrate that in the early-mid-Holocene (c. 9500–1000 BC) there was very low erosion of disturbed soils into the floodplain, with floodplain deposits confined to a naturally forming bedload fluvial deposit aggrading in a shallow channel of inter-linked deeper pools. At the time of the Neolithic monument building in the 4th to early 3rd millennium BC, the river was wide and shallow with areas of presumed braid plain. Between c. 4000–1000 BC, a human induced signature of soil erosion became a minor component of fluvial sedimentation in the Kennet palaeo-channel, but it was small scale and localised. This strongly suggests that there is little evidence of widespread woodland removal associated with Neolithic farming and monument building, despite the evidently large timber requirements for Neolithic sites like the West Kennet palisade enclosures. Consequently, there was relatively light human disturbance of the hinterland and valley slopes over the longue durée until the later Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, with a predominance of pasture over arable land. Rather than large Neolithic monument complexes being constructed within woodland clearings, representing ancestral and sacred spaces, the substantially much more open landscape provided a suitable landscape with areas of sarsen spreads potentially easily visible. During the period c. 3000–1000 BC, the sediment load within the channel slowly increased with alluvial deposition of increasingly humic silty clays across the valley floor. However, this only represents small-scale landscape disturbance. It is from the Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age when the anthropogenic signal of human driven alluviation becomes dominant and overtakes the bedload fluvial signal across the floodplain, with localised colluvial deposits on the floodplain margins. Subsequently, he alluvial archive describes more extensive human impact across this landscape, including the disturbance of loessic-rich soils in the catchment. The deposition of floodplain wide alluvium continues throughout the Roman, medieval and post-medieval periods, correlating with the development of a low-flow, single channel, with alluvial sediments describing a decreasing energy in the depositional
environment.
0079-497X
French, Charles
05af6b82-28eb-4ef9-a6a6-ed39fd8df649
Carey, Chris
619eff77-dac2-465b-836e-c92e8054b72a
Allen, Michael J.
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Toms, Philip
195b88bd-453d-46f6-8267-5e90ef06b8b2
Wood, Jamie
38ab2399-66bb-42c0-b617-4b8dbe8dd2f8
De Smedt, Philippe
7920c10c-ca77-4fee-9c2a-2c27da3aff34
Crabb, Nicholas
2105bd61-0995-4c6b-9d70-7c47efdd759e
Scaife, Rob
b258b25f-818e-4f20-aad8-bc17e170e6b5
Gillings, Mark
523857af-9da1-4c07-ac79-7d4830bd8181
Pollard, Joshua
5080faff-bc2c-4d27-b702-e40a5eb40761
French, Charles
05af6b82-28eb-4ef9-a6a6-ed39fd8df649
Carey, Chris
619eff77-dac2-465b-836e-c92e8054b72a
Allen, Michael J.
32c420d9-2f59-4897-a304-6ffdee786a8c
Toms, Philip
195b88bd-453d-46f6-8267-5e90ef06b8b2
Wood, Jamie
38ab2399-66bb-42c0-b617-4b8dbe8dd2f8
De Smedt, Philippe
7920c10c-ca77-4fee-9c2a-2c27da3aff34
Crabb, Nicholas
2105bd61-0995-4c6b-9d70-7c47efdd759e
Scaife, Rob
b258b25f-818e-4f20-aad8-bc17e170e6b5
Gillings, Mark
523857af-9da1-4c07-ac79-7d4830bd8181
Pollard, Joshua
5080faff-bc2c-4d27-b702-e40a5eb40761

French, Charles, Carey, Chris, Allen, Michael J., Toms, Philip, Wood, Jamie, De Smedt, Philippe, Crabb, Nicholas, Scaife, Rob, Gillings, Mark and Pollard, Joshua (2024) The alluvial geoarchaeology of the upper River Kennet in the Avebury landscape: a monumental transformation of a stable landscape. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. (In Press)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Geoarchaeological research as part of the AHRC-funded Living with Monuments (LwM) project investigated the upper Kennet river system across the Avebury World Heritage landscape. The results demonstrate that in the early-mid-Holocene (c. 9500–1000 BC) there was very low erosion of disturbed soils into the floodplain, with floodplain deposits confined to a naturally forming bedload fluvial deposit aggrading in a shallow channel of inter-linked deeper pools. At the time of the Neolithic monument building in the 4th to early 3rd millennium BC, the river was wide and shallow with areas of presumed braid plain. Between c. 4000–1000 BC, a human induced signature of soil erosion became a minor component of fluvial sedimentation in the Kennet palaeo-channel, but it was small scale and localised. This strongly suggests that there is little evidence of widespread woodland removal associated with Neolithic farming and monument building, despite the evidently large timber requirements for Neolithic sites like the West Kennet palisade enclosures. Consequently, there was relatively light human disturbance of the hinterland and valley slopes over the longue durée until the later Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, with a predominance of pasture over arable land. Rather than large Neolithic monument complexes being constructed within woodland clearings, representing ancestral and sacred spaces, the substantially much more open landscape provided a suitable landscape with areas of sarsen spreads potentially easily visible. During the period c. 3000–1000 BC, the sediment load within the channel slowly increased with alluvial deposition of increasingly humic silty clays across the valley floor. However, this only represents small-scale landscape disturbance. It is from the Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age when the anthropogenic signal of human driven alluviation becomes dominant and overtakes the bedload fluvial signal across the floodplain, with localised colluvial deposits on the floodplain margins. Subsequently, he alluvial archive describes more extensive human impact across this landscape, including the disturbance of loessic-rich soils in the catchment. The deposition of floodplain wide alluvium continues throughout the Roman, medieval and post-medieval periods, correlating with the development of a low-flow, single channel, with alluvial sediments describing a decreasing energy in the depositional
environment.

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Accepted/In Press date: 23 February 2024

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 489478
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/489478
ISSN: 0079-497X
PURE UUID: 3a13ab7f-10f1-4153-93dc-d12b1ca4d65c
ORCID for Joshua Pollard: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8429-2009

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Date deposited: 25 Apr 2024 16:31
Last modified: 27 Apr 2024 01:47

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Contributors

Author: Charles French
Author: Chris Carey
Author: Michael J. Allen
Author: Philip Toms
Author: Jamie Wood
Author: Philippe De Smedt
Author: Nicholas Crabb
Author: Rob Scaife
Author: Mark Gillings
Author: Joshua Pollard ORCID iD

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