The landscape of northern England presents a highly varied picture, which affects potential for settlement to a high degree. Its combination of lowland, highland and wetland mixed with varying local climatic conditions means that patterns of settlement are in no way uniform. Higham's (1987) examination of long-term agricultural potential argued that lowland regions east of the Pennines held the best agricultural lands both for arable and pastoral regimes, although at least some of these lowland regions may be susceptible to waterlogging, as in parts of the Vale of York. He considered the Yorkshire Wolds as a 'core' region with the longest probable growing season and most likely advantageous conditions during periods of climatic downturns, including the later 6th to 9th centuries. West of the Pennines, there were good-quality soils in the lowland areas of southern Cumbria and into Lancashire, although the growing season was probably markedly shorter here than in the east. The poor soils in the Lake District, Cheviots, North Yorkshire Moors and higher slopes of the Pennines were all constraints on settlement and all of these regions were more likely to be sparsely populated (Higham 1987). Environmental constraints on early medieval settlement have also been identified through the extensive work of the Humber Wetlands Survey. Van de Noort (2000) has argued that large tracts of the Holderness Plain, Hull Valley and the southern Vale of York were regularly flooded from the 5th to 9th centuries, with low levels of exploitation in these areas except for meadowland and their attendant settlement, probably on free-draining soils nearby. In the west, areas of mossland and marshland, in Cheshire and Lancashire especially, have inhibited settlement (Higham 2004, fig. 4). In addition, a likely post-Roman marine transgression in many wetland areas of northern England resulted in a loss of settlement or agricultural use in these areas for some time (Higham 2004, 129). Brian Roberts (2008) has mapped the patterns of woodland in northern England for the middle to late Saxon period (c. 700-1086), based on place-name and Domesday evidence (Fig. 68). This indicates extensive tracts of woodland in the Holderness Plain, extending north into the Vale of York and continuing along the eastern fringes of the Pennines. In Cumbria much of the lowland areas of the north-west were also wooded.
Early medieval settlement: archaeological and historical background
Patterns of early medieval portable antiquities
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