Proceedings at Meetings of the Royal Archaeological Institute

Neolithic settlements are rare on the British mainland, and England in particular (Cooney 1997; Thomas 1999. 8–9 for somewhat differing comments}. One claimed site occurs at Portinscale 4 km west of the Castlerigg stone circle in the English Lake District where a number of stone axes and other artefacts were found in 1901. The finds were reported to consist of four unpolished stone axes, a number of ‘chippings of similar stone’ and of a ‘log…in an upright position, with the top rudely chipped as if by some clumsy instrument’ (Rawnsley 1902). The remains have sometimes been interpreted as those of a possible settlement where the axes were ‘finished’ or polished (Manby 1965, 3; cf. Fell 1950, 9), although Briggs (1989} noted that the axes also may have been used unpolished. The site is important in any discussion of the production of stone axes in the central Lake District (Bradley and Edmonds 1993). This paper reports the result of small-scale excavations designed to assess whether any material of archaeological interest survived on site and reviews the evidence reported by Rawnsley and that of stray finds of axes from the vicinity of Keswick and Castlerigg (Illus. 1).     

大遗址保护与考古遗址公园建设

建设考古遗址公园,是新时期大遗址保护新模式,是建设和谐社会和中华民族共同精神家园的重要举措。建设考古遗址公园的根本目的是保护遗址、服务考古。考古遗址公园建设必须科学规划,严肃论证,循序渐进,稳妥扎实。考古学家应积极支持考古遗址公园建设。文物管理部门应对考古遗址公园建设热情支持,善加引导,健全规章,严格管理。     

Proceedings at the Meetings of the Archaeological Institute

The excavator has two advantages over his architect colleague in the study of ancient buildings: he can take his studies back long before the date of the earliest surviving vernacular buildings; and, by beginning his researches at ground level and going down, he can study parts that other researchers cannot reach. This paper, arising out of excavations undertaken in medieval York over the past eight years, seeks to compare what is now known about the underpinnings of York's medieval buildings with the development established, in the main by Denys Spittle's colleagues in the York office of the RCHM, from the above-ground evidence, the surviving buildings. It is offered to Mr Spittle, a scholar whose studies usually stop at ground level, from one whose studies as often as not begin there, on the one hand in recognition of the patient tolerance he has shown of the enthusiasms of the excavator during his incumbancy of the Institute's secretaryship; and on the other in the hopes that future vernacular building studies will increasingly show a marrying of the evidence from excavations with that from the standing buildings.     

Medieval Britain and Ireland in 1998

Abstract

Historic Building Investigations and selective excavations carried out during recent conservation works have shed new light on St Mary's Guildhall, Boston (Lincolnshire), built by an internationally significant religious fraternity in one of the most important ports of medieval England. Dendrochronological dating of the guildhall indicates a construction date of c 1390. This is significantly earlier than had previously been supposed and suggests a close link between the construction of the guildhall and the grant of a royal licence of incorporation to the guild in 1392. It makes the guildhall one of the earliest securely dated brick buildings in Lincolnshire and is important evidence of investment during a period when Boston was experiencing severe economic decline. Multidisciplinary analysis of the archaeology of the building and some of the guild's surviving documentary records enables a reconstruction of the original form and function of the guildhall and its now-lost material culture. Comparative analysis of Boston with other surviving provincial guildhalls begins to shed light on the emergence of a distinctive type of public architecture in pre-modern England.