Principal Christine Shaw
After the direct record of excavation, the collection of surface material, particularly from field walking, is possibly one of the more obvious methods of getting site data. Much has been written and debated about the way in which such material represents the locus of human activity. This long term project involved the burying of artificial sherd-like materials in a field and following the movement of the pieces from year to year in an agricultural environment subject to both deep and shallow ploughing. There were four years records over a span of ten years.
Both vertical and lateral displacement of all the pieces located each year was recorded. Peter Reynolds made the final set of measurements towards the end of 2000. With his death, discussions are in progress with English Heritage as to how the data may be utilised and published. More recently Peter had been co-operating with Michael Given at Glasgow University over the latter's work with buried bits of pot in a field in Cyprus. Some presentations of early data were given in the out-of-print Butser Year Books.
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Created 01 August 2001 - Updated 10 December 2004