… OF SHERDS AND SOIL AND SEALING LAYERS, OF COBBLING AND COINS…

Summary. From 1985 to 1987 an experiment was conducted alongside an excavation to examine the effect of trampling on cobbled layers, and to see if the movement of small objects could change their stratigraphic relationships. An experimental area was excavated and backfilled with soil and a cobbled layer containing plastic markers, flower pot sherds and coins. The area, part of a path, was subjected to daily trampling, and was excavated after seventeen months, using normal excavation methods; all the soil was dry sieved. The results show varying recovery rates and horizontal movements for different types of object, and demonstrate the need for further investigation of the causes and implications of differential movement of buried objects.     

Migration fields in a traditional Highland community, 1350–1850

Using information on marriages from a clan genealogy composed in 1705 and from parish registers after 1775, a network of social relations within the Clann Mhuirich has been constructed over a three-and-a-half century period. An examination of marriage records and records of the residences of baptizing families throws light on the means whereby social relationships are formed and maintained over space through time in a Scottish highland community before the mid-nineteenth century. A basic characteristic of a Highland clan was its agnatic structure, binding men and women related to each other by patrilineal descent, often bearing the same surname. The territory occupied by a clan became segmented by a process of agnatic migration as clansmen acquired land through marriage. Another characteristic of clan organization was a tendency towards high levels of clan endogamy. Endogamous marriages reinforced the agnatic structure and maintained continuity of possession of a clan's territory.     

Colonial survey records and the vegetation of Essex County,Ontario

This paper uses the earliest colonial records for Essex County to establish and map the ingredients of the forest at European contact. It does so in the context of the work both of P. F. Maycock, the modern botanist, and the records of the colonial surveyors. It uses Maycock's thesis of the relationship of individual species to the soil moisture series. The paper establishes what the surveyors considered “good” and “poor” land, maps vegetation areas which the settlers may have discerned and offers statistical evidence for the idea that they, using the prevailing forest lore, could identify the better lands with a minimum knowledge of tree species. Specific references in the historical record suggest that these relationships were valid.