The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 212 • John Schofield
Other towns, however, succeeded. Gloucester and Coventry switched attention from wool to
cloth production. Salisbury and Norwich did likewise, and whole regions came to specialize in
cloth: notably the south-west (Totnes; Castle Combe), East Anglia (Lavenham; Hadleigh) and the
former West Riding of Yorkshire (Halifax and Wakefield). Ports also fared better, as demonstrated
by the fortunes of Bristol and London.
MAJOR AND TYPICAL DATA TYPES
Urban finds are of several kinds: ceramics (largely pottery); animal bones; human bones; buildings
and loose building material; non-ceramic artefacts (in leather, wood and metals); and biological
and botanical evidence. Buildings and streets are types of artefact, to be analysed in the same
general ways as pottery or small finds. The town’s archaeology is the result of a bundle of
influences—climatic regimes, physical factors in the environment such as the influence of geology
or gradual pollution, or biological factors (e.g. dietary differences between people).
The archaeologist studying medieval British towns must use maps and documents as well as
the trowel (Aston and Bond 1974; Platt 1976; Schofield 1993; Schofield and Vince 1994). Medieval
towns have, to varying degrees, the additional benefit of more records per square kilometre than
Figure 12.1 The undercroft beneath the chapel on medieval London Bridge, revealed during demolition
in 1832. Above the crypt are the road layers of the thirteenth-century bridge itself. Engravings like this are
the earliest archaeological records of medieval towns.
Source: Guildhall Library, London