Internet Archaeol.5 West Heslerton Assessment 3-7-0

3.7 Material Culture

The total number of artefacts recovered from the site amounts to c.130,000 of which c.85% are accurately recorded with 3D co-ordinates; the remaining material was extracted using a variety of different techniques and forms a comparative data-set. The need for detailed spatial recording of the recovered material was magnified by the homogeneous nature of many of the soils on the site, particularly on surfaces where large expanses of soil had little or no obvious variation in physical composition. To have adopted a more traditional approach of gridding these areas and extracting the material to a lower degree of precision would either have required almost the same level of recording as was necessary for the 3D recorded finds, or the generation of a massively increased context record which may well have proved unmanageable. Ceramics form the largest single artefact group, followed by stone, which includes both imported and local material, much of it derived from structures such as the hearths and furnaces, daub and unfired clay fragments. The unfired clay forms an important group since it largely comprises fragments of loom-weights which are another distinctive component of sites of this period. Their distribution, whilst indicating that textile manufacture is an important craft, demonstrates discard policy and cannot be linked directly to structural function. The clay source utilised for making the loom weights lay adjacent to the site, and there is little to indicate the extensive re-use of these items.

Fig. 3.19 West Heslerton: artefact frequency (faunal material excluded)

The majority of the artefacts and ecofacts recovered are derived from sealed features and surfaces protected from degradation either by the presence of the medieval field headland or by aeolian deposits. The relative frequency of material derived from surfaces and from features may be important in establishing residuality indexes. The relatively poor quality of the Anglo-Saxon ceramics is certain to have reduced survival levels, particularly in the eroded surface spreads and midden deposits. Detailed comparative analysis of the ceramic ratios within the sealed features and the open midden deposits may allow us to identify a basic survival index for this material. A preliminary chart giving the relative frequencies of material derived from features and from surfaces indicates that the recovery of identified Early-Saxon material from features comprises three times the quantity from surfaces, a ratio not reflected in the Roman material where ceramic survival is at its best.

Fig. 3.20 Artefacts by period: surfaces vs features