Journal article
Medieval settlement chronologies: reflections on an extensive radiocarbon dating programme
- Abstract:
- The Feeding Anglo-Saxon England (FeedSax) project applied scientific methods to bioarchaeological remains, in order to shed new light on medieval English agriculture. The methodology included an extensive radiocarbon dating programme which, besides helping to date developments in farming at selected case study sites, proved informative in its own right. This paper discusses the key implications of this programme’s results, with regard to the general problems of dating medieval settlement phases. First, it has allowed us to devise a new ‘universal’ chronological schema which aligns conventional phases with the precision currently attainable from calibrated radiocarbon dates. Second, it has revealed frequent discrepancies between the radiocarbon dates of organic remains and their original phasing — usually based upon associated ceramics — often resulting in chronological refinements or revisions, and sometimes revealing hitherto unrecognised periods of activity. In particular, the results highlight that ceramic-based phasing often underestimates the age of organic remains.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 780.3KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1080/00766097.2025.2578115
Authors
+ European Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0472cxd90
- Grant:
- 741751
- Publisher:
- Taylor & Francis
- Journal:
- Medieval Archaeology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 69
- Issue:
- 2
- Pages:
- 328-346
- Publication date:
- 2025-12-27
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-05-07
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1745-817X
- ISSN:
-
0076-6097
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
2122274
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2122274
- Deposit date:
-
2025-05-07
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- McKerracher et al
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properlycited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) orwith their consent.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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