This thesis presents an independent, sediment-based record of landscape change within an agricultural hinterland. Established historical and archaeological sequences document the primary occupation of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka’s ancient capital, beginning ca. 400 BC and lasting until it was largely abandoned in AD 1017. Anuradhapura is located in the island’s dry zone, which depends almost completely on the unpredictable Northeastern Monsoon for water. Oral history and historical narratives have long held that large-scale irrigated rice cultivation took place in the hinterland to produce an agricultural surplus that sustained the urban and monastic populations. However, until the onset of the Anuradhapura Hinterland Project in 2005, the archaeological record of the hinterland was undocumented, leaving existing narratives untested. The geoarchaeological research presented here was undertaken as part of the Hinterland Project, in order to document the chronology and cultural and environmental processes that contributed to the formation of this irrigated landscape. Optical dating of sediments demonstrates that the onset of large-scale irrigation began ca. 400 BC, and the construction of new works continued until Anuradhapura’s late occupation period. Sampled reservoirs and channels began to infill, indicating widespread disuse, within ca. 100 years of Anuradhapura’s abandonment. Soil micromorphology and bulk sediment characterisation document hinterland habitation, water management, and cultivation activities prior to the establishment of large-scale irrigation. This work illustrates the coping strategies that people employed to deal with the vagaries of the dry zone environment and demonstrates that hinterland land use changed throughout the primary occupation period. Although largescale irrigation works infilled relatively rapidly, cultural activity and land use re-emerged following this period of disuse.

Deep anthropogenic topsoils – those augmented through long-term additions of mineral bulk among fertilising agents – retain in both their physical and chemical make-up significant indicators for cultural activity. This project researched the geographical distribution and historical context of deep anthropogenic topsoils in Scotland and the Isles, and used this information to investigate the impact of current land cover upon the cultural information they retain. In so doing, the project investigated the potential for conservation of this significant cultural resource. A review of the historical information available on agricultural and manuring practices for Scotland identified several factors likely to affect deep topsoil distribution and frequency. These were: the availability of bulk manures to Scottish farmers, the significance of the seaweed resource in determining fertiliser strategies in coastal areas, and the influence of urban settlement and associated patterns of domestic and industrial waste disposal on the location of deep topsoils. Evidence for widespread deep topsoil development was limited. The primary data source used – the First Statistical Account of Scotland – was manipulated into a spatial database in ArcView GIS, to which geographical data from the Soil Survey of Scotland and national archaeological survey databases were added. This was used to devise a survey programme aiming both to investigate the potential factors affecting soil development listed above, and to locate deep topsoil sites for analysis. Three sites were identified with deep topsoils under different cover types (woodland, arable and pasture). The urban-influenced context of two of these highlighted the significance of urban settlement to the location of Scottish deep topsoils. Analysis of pH, organic matter, and total phosphorus content showed a correlation between raised organic matter and a corresponding increase in phosphorus content in soils under permanent vegetation. By contrast, soils under arable cultivation showed no such rise. This was attributed to the action of cropping in removing modern organic inputs prior to down-profile cycling. The potential for pasture and woodland cover to affect relict soil signatures was therefore observed. Thin section analysis aimed to both provide micromorphological characterisation of the three deep topsoil sites and investigate the effect of modern land cover on micromorphological indicators. Distinctive differences in micromorphological character were observed between the rural and urban deep topsoils, with the latter showing a strong focus on carbonised fuel residues and industrial wastes. All sites showed a highly individual micromorphological character, reflective of localised fertilising systems. There was no correlation between land cover type and survival of material indictors for anthropogenic activity, with soil cultural indicators surviving well, particularly those characteristic of urban-influenced topsoils. Suggestions for preservation strategies for this potentially rare and highly localised cultural resource included the incorporation of deep anthropogenic topsoil conservation into current government policy relating to care of the rural historic environment, and the improvement of data on the resource through ongoing survey and excavation.