Cath Neal

Humans as major geological and geomorphological agents in the Anthropocene: the significance of artificial ground in Great Britain

Since the first prehistoric people started to dig for stone to make implements, rather than pick up loose material, humans have modified the landscape through excavation of rock and soil, generation of waste and creation of artificial ground. In Great Britain over the past 200 years, people have excavated, moved and built up the equivalent of at least six times the volume of Ben Nevis. It is estimated that the worldwide deliberate annual shift of sediment by human activity is 57 000 Mt (million tonnes) and exceeds that of transport by rivers to the oceans (22 000 Mt) almost by a factor of three. Humans sculpt and transform the landscape through the physical modification of the shape and properties of the ground. As such, humans are geological and geomorphological agents and the dominant factor in landscape evolution through settlement and widespread industrialization and urbanization. The most significant impact of this has been since the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, coincident with increased release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The anthropogenic sedimentological record, therefore, provides a marker on which to characterize the Anthropocene.

Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere: A geological perspective

We assess the scale and extent of the physical technosphere, defined here as the summed material output of the contemporary human enterprise. It includes active urban, agricultural and marine components, used to sustain energy and material flow for current human life, and a growing residue layer, currently only in small part recycled back into the active component. Preliminary estimates suggest a technosphere mass of approximately 30 trillion tonnes (Tt), which helps support a human biomass that, despite recent growth, is ~5 orders of magnitude smaller. The physical technosphere includes a large, rapidly growing diversity of complex objects that are potential trace fossils or ‘technofossils’. If assessed on palaeontological criteria, technofossil diversity already exceeds known estimates of biological diversity as measured by richness, far exceeds recognized fossil diversity, and may exceed total biological diversity through Earth’s history. The rapid transformation of much of Earth’s surface mass into the technosphere and its myriad components underscores the novelty of the current planetary transformation.

Engaging Communities in the ‘Big Society’: What Impact is the Localism Agenda having on Community Archaeology?

Abstract When the UK Coalition Government came to power in May 2010, its members brought with them a localism agenda, based upon what they called the ‘Big Society’. This agenda was focused on community engagement and devolvement of power, and has seen a number of legislative and policy changes in the UK, with the 2012 Localism Act devolving powers to local government, and providing means for local communities to become involved in decision making, inspire volunteerism, and support social enterprise. This paper draws upon debates which have arisen within the archaeological sector relating to the broad influence of the localism agenda on its work, with individual contributors taking various positions regarding theoretical analysis of the Big Society in relation to the social goals of archaeology. The contributors ask, respectively: what is it that we do which can be thought of as the Big Society, and what is its meaning against the context of the socially focused archaeology work already done by the sector? What limitations must we be aware of, and how can we make the most of the opportunities? Critical consideration is then given to why archaeologists should be interested in political agendas such as this.

Authority and Community: Reflections on Archaeological Practice at Heslington East, York

Abstract This paper describes the successes and limitations of our community work during archaeological investigations at Heslington East in York, and draws out some of the wider lessons of this engagement. The successes involved wider participation in the archaeological process by a number of different groups, including often marginalized ones such as homeless people. It not only generated greater understanding of the historical depth of their locality, but delivered important wider skill sets in problem-solving approaches and team working. However, it also showed the conflicts that can develop in such contexts, which relate, in our case, to the fact that the university was institutionally committed to local engagement but was also the (often unwelcome) developer of a green space already used by that community for its own purposes. More generally, tensions result from a government strategy of emphasizing citizenship and localism to tackle the current eco- nomic recession, participation in which can result in tokenism rather than real empowerment of local communities. We conclude that archaeology, as socially-embedded practice, must recognize these deeper contexts and, hopefully, do more to transcend their limitations if ‘community archaeology’ is to deliver fully on its promises.

The Potential of Integrated Urban Deposit Modelling as a Cultural Heritage Planning Tool

Researchers investigating human settlements from an archaeological perspective have long recognized that the urban landscape provides a particular set of challenges and demands. Building on the formative Arup study [Ove Arup and Partners (1991) York Development and Archaeology Study (London: English Heritage)], urban deposit modelling as a heritage planning tool has been developed for some time; however, its use has not become widespread. There are however recent intellectual and technical developments that enhance integrated deposit modelling and reveal potential as a curatorial tool for the management of the historic environment. These relate to three key developments: the improvement and enhancement of 3D modelling and visualization techniques, conceptual changes around categories such as ‘made ground’ and the formation of research agendas for the urban historic environment. This paper will explore an example of the difficulties inherent in combining differently scaled datasets whilst also outlining the potential and the significance of urban deposit modelling in, often deeply stratified, historic northern European cities.

Early Medieval Settlement at Mothecombe, Devon: The Interaction of Local, Regional and Long-Distance Dynamics

Excavations at Meadowsfoot Beach, Mothecombe, south Devon, between 2004 and 2011 focused on two main areas. In the first, evidence for occupation in a sand dune included successive hearths and imported early medieval finds. In the second, three phases of early medieval structures were uncovered, along with more imported finds including amphora sherds. At least one of the structures was very large, and is presently unique in Devon. The landscape context of the site is considered along with the impact of sea-level change and coastal erosion. The paper concludes with a discussion of the site and its relationship to post-Roman networks of trade and communications with late Antique Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean. We argue that Mothecombe helps us towards a better understanding of these networks by furnishing new insights on their social foundations in western Britain.

Heritage and Participation

‘Participation’ within the heritage arena is generally considered to mean the active involvement of stakeholders within a range of processes and projects. However, it is critical that we recognize more implicit uses of the term, through which ‘public participation’ also comes to perform as a governance instrument by which individual behaviour is shaped and directed by governmental policy and associated institutions. While this type of participation can be seen across other sectors and not just within heritage discourse and activity, its occurrence here is remarkable for its pervasiveness and influence. For example, when explicitly considering participation within heritage, the most obvious foci of activity are within ‘leisure activities’, including arts, music, archives, museology and performance, although the nature of a broadly constituted heritage means that it may go on in everyday interactions and experiences, in ways that are hard to observe, recognize and measure.

Know your place? Evaluating the therapeutic benefits of engagement with historic landscapes

This paper emphasises the restorative power of engagement with natural/cultural environments by exploring a body of work that identifies the positive impact of the historic environment on the health and well-being of community archaeology participants. Increasing importance has been ascribed to the role of landscape in public health research and to the environmental factors, which contribute to enhanced quality of life. In reviewing the ways that community archaeology projects are evaluated, and in summarising current practice, we observe that the evidence produced is often anecdotal. However, it is possible to increase robust therapeutic evaluation in ways that might be expected from other disciplinary perspectives and to draw on recent work in the role of the arts in health. This paper highlights that many of those currently engaged in community archaeology are self-selecting, and represent only a small subset of society. The narrow scope of engagement is borne out by Heritage Lottery Fund-commissioned research which found that, whilst volunteering has a significant positive impact on participants, they tend to be white, well-educated and live in the most affluent areas. If historic environment practitioners are to claim therapeutic benefits from their work, then the issue of inequity of access to health benefits is a significant concern for the profession. It is not just a matter of social justice but a concern for the arts and humanities sector, which is currently required to justify its public value [Bate, J. (2011). Public value of the humanities. London: Bloomsbury Academic].