Site numbers issued as part of the Heslerton Parish Project relate to individual fields bounded by current field boundaries and therefore have no specific relationship to any archaeological features. Site 28 is a large, 14ha, field situated between the 27.5 and 37.5 metre contours with a shallow gradient of about one metre in fifty, measuring c. 430 metres north to south and c. 350 metres east to west, centred on OS grid reference SE 936/770. A further area of 3.8ha lying immediately to the north and extending beyond the eastern limit of the area is incorporated as part of Site 28, a boundary having recently been removed; although this is no longer defined by a hedge it still serves as a boundary in current cropping arrangements. The boundary itself appears to represent a straightening of a much earlier boundary that survives as a ridge, and follows a major ditch system defined through geophysical survey and probably representing a Late Roman flood defence. Immediately to the north of this ridge the ground levels out and the slope becomes more gradual on the floodplain towards the centre of the valley.
During 2001 the site was being used for the commercial cultivation of turf, which made conditions ideal for field and geophysical survey. Turf cultivation suits the very sandy nature of the soils the site is situated on, and extends to the northern limit of the broad deposit of soft sands and gravels that extend from the foot of the Wolds scarp to the edge of the area of ancient wetlands, and once covered much of the centre of the Vale of Pickering. Enhanced hedge banks on the eastern and western boundary of the field demonstrate that this field is also within the area where the archaeological deposits are frequently buried beneath blown sands.
© Internet Archaeology/Author(s)
URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue27/2/3.html
Last updated: Wed Nov 11 2009