Scientific dating unlocks development
Tuesday 11 July
We provide specialist advice on the scientific dating methods most applicable to your site and work with market-leading specialist laboratories.
Prior to a residential development ASWYAS completed the large scale excavation of a Romano-British field system in South Yorkshire. The project applied a specialist dating technique called optical stimulated luminescence (OSL) which indicated the origins of the site dated to the middle Bronze Age.
The field system was of a 'brick work' morphology, typical for region, and formed part of the wider rural landscape of the late prehistoric and Roman period. The site featured large rectangular ditched enclosures with subdividing ditches and an extensive surrounding trackway. A significant observation was the abundant 'recutting' of the ditches, suggesting the field system had been reestablished and maintained over a long period of time.
Brick work field systems are a common feature within South Yorkshire, however dating these sites has often proved difficult due to the scarcity of artefactual evidence, and they are generally ascribed a Romano-British date on a typological basis. The entire excavation at Doncaster Road only produced a few sherds of Roman pottery.
OSL dating presented an opportunity to determine a more accurate timescale for the activity at this type of site. Targeted samples of archaeological sediment were careful recovered and sent to the University of Sheffield for analysis. The results confirmed a general Romano-British date for the site, but also showed that the earliest phase of the field system dated to the Bronze Age, much earlier than anticipated.
The Doncaster Road project has demonstrated that careful excavation combined with scientific dating methods such as OSL can be used successfully in the commercial industry and produce valuable archaeological insights.
OSL samples being taken from ditch section