A View From The Edge: Archaeological Investigation on the Manhood Peninsula, Selsey for the Medmerry Managed Realignment Scheme.

Between 2010-2013, the Environment Agency undertook the managed realignment of the coastline at Medmerry. The project is the largest open-coast flood relief scheme undertaken in Europe and impacted on upwards of 60ha of landscape with rich archaeological potential. The opportunity for archaeological research offered by the scheme has provided a window into the evolution of this distinctive coastal landscape from the earliest period of archaeologically visible human settlement in the Bronze Age through to the modern era.

The geoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental programme produced a significant sediment archive, an important contribution to the study of the Manhood Peninsula. Important prehistoric archaeology was uncovered including a Mesolithic flint assemblage, partly from an in situ knapping site, and five burnt mounds, radiocarbon dated to the Early-Middle Bronze Age tranisition, recorded in probable lagoon-edge locations. These are succeeded by Middle Bronze Age settlement and more widepsread Late Bronze Age activity, with two settlements within a localised co-axial field system. Historic period remains include Saxon settlement, with boundaries of possible building plots, and a series of wooden structures within the estuarine or lagoon silts, including major conserved wooden structures of 13-14^th century date, interpreted as several phases of large fish weir. Detailed recording of six pillboxes and two gunnery range buildings, together with a large assemblage of expended ordnance, allowed for a detailed consideration of the coastal defences installed during World War II.

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This volume presents the findings from four urban excavations undertaken within the historic core of Lewes in East Sussex, between 2004 and 2008. It charts Lewes’ evolution from a Late Saxon burh (fortress) to a thriving high medieval urban centre at the head of the newly formed Rape of Lewes, and on through late medieval and early post-medieval times as County Town of Sussex, placing the archaeology of Lewes within the wider historical context of English settlements and towns.

This volume presents the findings from four urban excavations undertaken within the historic core of Lewes in East Sussex, between 2004 and 2008. It charts Lewes’ evolution from a Late Saxon burh (fortress) to a thriving high medieval urban centre at the head of the newly formed Rape of Lewes, and on through late medieval and early post-medieval times as County Town of Sussex, placing the archaeology of Lewes within the wider historical context of English settlements and towns.        

The earliest activity was of a developing Middle to Late Iron Age riverside and upland agricultural settlement, with evidence for its subsistence economy, metalworking and infant burial practices. The settlement began with curvilinear enclosures and expanded uphill ending with a more formalised, linear division of the landscape.

A large Late Saxon feature recorded on the western side of St Nicholas Lane is interpreted as a possible element of the burh fortifications and if so, presents the first archaeological remains of the fortress thought to occupy the uppermost part of the town, and provides the location of the eastern limits of the burh.

Insights into the lives of Lewes’ Late Saxon and medieval inhabitants, their diet, agriculture and economy has come from numerous deep quarry and refuse pits which yielded huge assemblages of finds including pottery, animal and fish bones, plant remains and artefacts. The remains of several medieval buildings were recorded, alongside ex situ finds of clay and stone building materials. 

By the late 18th- to 19th-century, significant development and expansion was underway in Lewes, reflected on two of the sites by an abundance of brick-built remains

Between 2015 and 2018 Archaeology South-East conducted archaeological and geoarchaeological investigations at Dover Western Docks on behalf of Dover Harbour Board. This monograph marks the culmination of over seven years of post-excavation work and details the evolution of Dover’s inner harbour during the post-medieval and modern periods. Remains encountered at the site included two woolly mammoth teeth, deposits probably dating to the early to late medieval periods, high medieval to post-medieval mudflats and part of the nationally important Elizabethan harbour works attributed to Thomas Digges. Later remains at the site included piling works designed by the famous military engineer Bernard de Gomme, an 18th-century timber groyne, evidence of the 19th- and 20th-century promenade with housing and dockyards as well as features related to World War II.

The Horse Butchery Site: A high resolution record of Lower Palaeolithic hominin behaviour at Boxgrove, UK.

The Boxgrove Horse Butchery Site represents a significant discovery, preserving a single landsurface associated with tight clusters of flint artefacts and the butchered remains of a large female horse, sealed under intertidal silts. This volume presents the first integrated analysis of this exceptional site. It documents the evidence used to reconstruct activities including biface manufacture, defleshing of bones, marrow extraction and the production of bone tools. 

The Boxgrove Horse Butchery Site began as a small test pit, designated GTP17, excavated in 1988. It quickly became clear that the site represented a significant discovery, preserving a single landsurface associated with tight clusters of flint artefacts sealed under intertidal silts. As excavations continued during the summers of 1989–91, it became apparent that this landsurface also preserved the butchered remains of a large female horse. It provided the first well-preserved and combined accumulation of artefacts and faunal remains from Boxgrove, representing an opportunity to study what appeared to be a hominin group working together to butcher a single animal.

This volume presents the first integrated analysis of this exceptional site. It documents the evidence used to reconstruct activities including biface manufacture, defleshing of bones, marrow extraction and the production of bone tools. Detailed analysis of site formation processes suggest the entire episode possibly occurred within a single day, with the scatters of flint and bone sealed quickly within fine intertidal silts. These silts not only preserved the spatial integrity of the activity at the site, but also sealed a record allowing behaviour of an entire hominin group, including social interactions, to be brought under direct study.

While the sediments at Boxgrove are renowned for their preservation of hominin behaviour at landscape scale, the Horse Butchery Site represents a vivid and intimate picture of group activity at human scales of time and space. With the publication of this volume we present an important case study for Palaeolithic archaeology, one through which aspects of Middle Pleistocene hominin subsistence, ecology, technology and social behaviour can be explored.

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The fortunes of Sandwich and its environs have been inextricably linked to the river throughout the town’s history. During the medieval and post-medieval periods there were remarkable changes within the landscape. This was influenced by the evolution of coastal shingle barriers and lead to the decline of Sandwich as a port. By the 15th century the River Stour, and consequently Sandwich itself, was deteriorating rapidly.  Archaeology South-East was commissioned by the Environment Agency to undertake an archaeological watching brief, targeted investigations and historic building recording during the Sandwich Town Tidal Defence Scheme, both in and around the town. The scheme involved the construction off 14km of floodwalls and embankments along the Stour, from Richborough to Broad Salts. This volume details the findings of the investigations, which revealed evidence for the management of the river both within and outside the town. Evidence for the progression of the town’s waterfront further into the river corroborates earlier archaeological findings, and palaeoenvironmental data contributes to the wider body of evidence for the evolution of the Stour, which is currently sparse for the medieval and post-medieval periods. Finds included artefacts of Dutch origins, which might hint at trade with Low Countries or Dutch people within the settled population, and evidence giving insights into Sandwich’s local fishing economy.  The results demonstrate that, while the new flood barriers comprise the most recent attempt at flood defence, they are part of a long history of human management of the Rover Stour, stretching back at last as far as the 12th century.

This marshside excavation, at the juncture of the South Downs and Willingdon Levels, revealed evidence that it was home to communities that exploited and interacted with these two different landscapes from the early prehistoric to the post-medieval period.

The earliest activity was a probable Bronze Age inhumation burial, interred on a conspicuous chalk promontory, with further cremation burials added in the Middle Bronze Age. The first sustained settlement was a substantial Early/Middle Iron Age enclosure, where large-scale saltworking was undertaken as a specialist activity. A subsequent Middle/Late Iron Age settlement, occupied with alteration until the Late Roman period, acquired a specialist crop-processing function, probably when a villa was located to the immediate north in the Early Roman period.

In the later 6th–7th centuries, sunken-featured buildings and a post-built hall were constructed. This is the long-anticipated, first identification of Early Anglo-Saxon settlement at Eastbourne, and represents the second largest settlement of the period identified in East Sussex. By the 8th century, this was abandoned, and the site was bisected by a new holloway, re-establishing the connection between the South Downs and the marsh of the Willingdon Levels.

A small ‘croft and toft’ type farmstead occupied the site in the high medieval period, before a substantial masonry farmhouse was built in the mid 15th century. In the 16th century, this was converted from an open hall to a fully floored building.

The considerable artefact assemblage recovered included over 29,000 sherds of Iron Age pottery, one of the largest fired clay assemblages associated with prehistoric saltworking in southern England, and sufficient post-Roman pottery to establish a fabric type-series for the wider local area.

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