The sandy and now mostly alkaline environments present over much of the site offered only limited potential for the recovery of palynological evidence. An assessment of the potential to recover pollen was undertaken by David Weir (AML) which confirmed the poor potential for the recovery of significant counts of pollen from the soils. It is hoped that better results can be obtained from the examination of the coprolites. There are a number of locations in the site hinterland which have good pollen survival, particularly to the north where isolated peat deposits survive towards the centre of the Vale of Pickering. This potential is worthy of a separate study which could examine the broader environmental context of the archaeology of the central Vale of Pickering, providing comparable evidence to that recovered from Seamer Carr. Whilst potentially very important, the broader examination of the landscape through such a study goes beyond what is required for completion of this project.
© Internet Archaeology
URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue5/westhes/4-7.htm
Last updated: Tue Dec 15 1998