York Historic Environment Record

Field Walking and archaeological evaluation trenches. The geophysical survey has been given a separate event number EYO76. An archaeological evaluation of this site which was still being used as farmland and covered an area which measured 750 metres north to south and 350 metres west to east. The evaluation was carried out in advance of a development. A number of techniques were employed to carry out this evaluation and included fieldwalking followed by a geo-physical survey (EYO76) of the site. This led directly to the excavation of a series of trenches (23 in all) which were spread across the area of the site and were generally placed directly over geo-physical anomalies which were picked up during the earlier phase of the evaluation process. The fieldwalking produced a number of artifacts dating to the Medieval or later periods but only a small amount of Roman pieces were recorded. No Pre-Historic artifacts were recovered from this site. No obvious spreads in the artefact distribution led the contractor to conclude that the artefacts found were present as a result of the depostion of manure on the surface of the field in the past. The geophysical survey which followed found that in the main the results showed a number of weak anamolies were spread across the entire site and few were positively identified as possible archaeological features. With the exception of three, the trial trenches measured 10 metres by 10 metres (the three that didn’t conform to this pattern were trenches 18 and 20 each of which measured 10 x 5 metres and trench 23 measuring 50 x 2 metres). All were sunk to the depth of the natural sub-soil. The results of these excavations revealed that any stratified deposits layers that may have existed above the natural clay sub-soil has been destroyed by ploughing and any archaeological features encountered were as a result of them being cut into the natural sub-soil. In the end few archaeological features were encountered and those that were tended to be concentrated in the area of trench 23. The reason for the lack of any significant features were due to the fact that the soil horizon above the natural was thin (estimated to be about 0.4Metres in depth) and the action of modern ploughing. Plan of trenches missing from digitised report. NMR Information: Site code: YORYM 1996.411. RCHME Microfilm Index PRN: 6372. Archive Holder National Monuments Record Centre Archive Holder York Archaeological Trust Auspices York Archaeological Trust Finds Holder York Archaeological Trust Funding Body/Financier Developer