No description available.

No description available.

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Artefacts relating to tin smelting from tin mills or 'blowing houses' in Devon and Cornwall, plus material from smelting sites that cover a range of dates from the Bronze Age through to the 19th Century, were examined: these include metallic tin, furnace linings, ore samples and slag. Analysis of tin slags from over forty sites was carried out, to determine microstructure and chemical composition. Techniques employed included optical and scanning electron microscopy, X-ray fluorescence and ICP mass spectrometry. Analysis indicates that slag appearance and composition are heavily influenced by local geology. Composition, particularly iron content, is shown to have a strong effect on slag melting point and viscosity, and the implications for the purity of metal produced are discussed. Bringing together the evidence provided by slag chemistry, documentary sources and smelting remains in the archaeological record, changes in tin smelting technology through time, and the consequences thereof, are considered.

Artefacts relating to tin smelting from tin mills or ¿blowing houses¿ in Devon and Cornwall, plus material from smelting sites that cover a range of dates from the Bronze Age through to the 19th Century, were examined: these include metallic tin, furnace linings, ore samples and slag. Analysis of tin slags from over forty sites was carried out, to determine microstructure and chemical composition. Techniques employed included optical and scanning electron microscopy, X-ray fluorescence and ICP mass spectrometry. Analysis indicates that slag appearance and composition are heavily influenced by local geology. Composition, particularly iron content, is shown to have a strong effect on slag melting point and viscosity, and the implications for the purity of metal produced are discussed. Bringing together the evidence provided by slag chemistry, documentary sources and smelting remains in the archaeological record, changes in tin smelting technology through time, and the consequences thereof, are considered. / R. F. Tylecote Memorial Fund, administered by the Historical Metallurgy Society, and the Francis Raymond Hudson Memorial Fund.

No / The loch-side settlement of Druim nan Dearcag has been shown by excavation to date to the 16th-17th centuries AD, when it formed part of a dispersed settlement pattern in north-west North Uist. Elements of this settlement system were subsequently truncated by ridge-and-furrow cultivation associated with the cleared township or 'baile' of Foshigarry. The site produced rare structural and artefactual evidence for this period of Hebridean history and may help shed some light on the development of settlement patterns, house types and land use in the late medieval and post-medieval periods.

No / Excavations in 1988 revealed a stratigraphic sequence extending from the later Roman period to the twelfth century. Of particular interest and importance is a collection of Viking-Age metalwork which, with other material, sheds light on settlement in Carlisle before the arrival of the Normans in 1092.

For several centuries following their introduction into the British Isles by the Normans, rabbits were farmed on man-made warrens. The right to hunt rabbits during the medieval period was restricted to the highest strata of society and warrens, and rabbit products, carried connotations of wealth and exclusivity. During the post-medieval period, as rabbits became less expensive, their exclusivity declined and access to the species increased across a wider spread of the population. Consequently, later warrens tended to be purely commercial ventures that in places lingered as a form of animal husbandry up until the early twentieth century. Evidence of these warrens is particularly common across England and Wales and typically, although not exclusively, takes the form of pillow mounds, earthworks created to encourage rabbits to burrow. Despite their longevity and high numbers, warrens remain relatively little studied. This thesis investigates surviving warren architecture within south-west England, incorporating archaeological data into a GIS in order to identify the locational, morphological and typological trends of the region’s warrens. It also assesses associations between warrens and other classes of archaeology, notably elite residences and parks, large ecclesiastical institutions and prehistoric earthworks. Doing so allows for a better understanding of warrens’ roles within their immediate environs and of their relationships with other aspects of the human landscape. This study also addresses natural geographical aspects of the landscape in order to determine the principal factors that influenced where warrens were installed. This study investigates documentary reference to warrens as many have not survived within the landscape. Medieval chancery rolls in particular allow for the creation of a national framework of warrening so that the South West can be compared and contrasted to other regions of medieval England. Documentary references, both medieval and post-medieval, to the South West’s warrens allow for the creation of a discrete regional history that defines the context for the establishment of the region’s warren architecture. This study assesses how rabbits were interpreted by medieval society and discusses symbolism, particularly the visual role played by warrens in advertising their owners’ wealth and any possible religious concepts associated with rabbits.

No description available.

Humans, like all animal species, are subject to Bergmann's (1847) and Allen's (1877) environmental rules which summarize physical adaptations to the natural environment. However, humans are in addition cultural animals and other bio-cultural factors such as social, economic and political status, general health, and nutrition, have a noticeable influence on stature and body proportions. Importantly, socio-economic status has a powerful influence on stature, which has been used to elucidate status differences in past societies (Bogin and Loucky, 1997; Floud et al., 1990; Schutkowski, 2000a). Furthermore, bio-cultural factors influence all dimensions of the human body, including weight, relative limb length, and relative length of the different limb segments. Given minimal migration and shared natural environments, all populations in this study, coming as they do from the last 2000 years of English history, should demonstrate similar morphology (c. f Ruff, 1994) if climatic variables were the only influence on stature and body proportions. In order to assess such bio-cultural factors in individuals from archaeological populations, skeletal populations from sites such as known leprosaria and medieval hospitals, rural and urban parish cemeteries, victims from the battle of Towton in A. D. 1461, and individuals from monastic cemeteries were analysed. The osteometric data from these populations were assessedfo r within and between population variability and indicate effects of bio-cultural factors on attained body proportions and stature. The results indicate a strong relationship between bio-cultural factors and body proportions, body mass index, prevalence of pathologies, sexual dimorphism, secular trend, and general stature from Roman times to the post-medieval period. The usefulness of stature, weight, and physical indices as markers of the bio-cultural environment is demonstrated. The main findings include: a greater sensitivity to external stressors in the males rather than the females of the analysed populations, rendering male statures more susceptible to varying bio-cultural conditions; a potential for very tall stature has existed in the analysed populations but was only realised. in very high status individuals in medieval times, and from the beginning 20'h century with better socio-economic conditions for the population at large; a less stratified socio-political environment, as in the late Anglo-Saxon period resulted in taller average male statures that a more stratified one, such as the medieval Nation-States; and medieval monastic institutions could have high status, e.g., the Gilbertines, or lower status, such as the mendicant orders, while leprosaria had the lowest status of all.