York Historic Environment Record

The majority of the anomalies identified by this survey are thought to relate to agricultural practice / features, modern material / objects or geological / pedological variations. There are a significant number of anomalies present whose cause cannot be determined. Many of these anomalies are linear and may be suggestive of field drains or agricultural features / regimes. However, there are also suggestions of returns or regular patterns to some of the anomalies that could indicate an archaeological origin. It is also possible that some of the anomalies are the product of several intersecting anomalies, which are modern in origin, which coincidently appear to form regular patterns or shapes. Part of the difficulty in interpreting the cause of the anomalies is that generally they are quite weak. It is worth noting that the responses associated with modern ploughing are relatively weak which may indicate that the soil has a relatively low magnetic susceptibility. This could mean that if infilled archaeological features are present that they would also produce relatively weak responses. It also means that many modern features would also produce relatively weak responses and so it is difficult to try and discriminate between the two. In summary, there is no clear evidence for archaeological activity within the site but there are a number of anomalies of uncertain origin. Many of these are probably associated with drainage or agricultural features but there is a possibility that some could be caused by archaeological features.