London Archaeology

Foreword

Taryn Nixon, Museum of London

The London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC) contains enormous, untold and untapped potential. The archaeological record created over the last 75 years is of international value and significance. Our premise is that it is only by studying the recorded data, by working with what we have and extending our understanding of it, that we – and others – will be able to use the records of London’s past to inform the future.

Therefore, the prime motivation for presuming to produce this document was to help to unlock the potential of the LAARC. While the document does not set out priorities for managing the in situ resource per se, it recognises that inevitably, our evolving understanding of the archive will flavour our approach to managing, protecting and recording in situ archaeological deposits.

We have set out to meet two important principles. Firstly, we have based the framework on encouraging partnerships and collaboration between different individuals and organisations. There is a significant body of research already underway using LAARC data, involving a large number of people and organisations, and there are projects and research programmes that have added enormous value by drawing together not only different groups and different disciplines, but also different sources of funding. We have sought, therefore, to develop a research framework that will help to integrate the many strands of ongoing research into London archaeology. We recognise that an effective research framework needs to be capable of guiding large numbers of research programmes and projects while providing cohesion. We have unashamedly promoted integrated, thematic analysis as an approach to understanding the archaeological record, and want to encourage – in partnership with other groups – research seminars and conferences on different themes to challenge our evolving interpretations.

Secondly, our intention has been to create a sustainable framework for research. Inevitably, this document contains views and aspirations that are of its time. Understanding and interpretation should – and will – change, and we have set out to foster an approach that is heuristic, rather than didactic. As the contents of the LAARC become more accessible, better known and collectively understood, new ideas and avenues for study will evolve and it is important that interpretations are challenged. As the curator of the LAARC, the Museum of London (MoL) therefore proposes both to cross-examine and regularly republish the Research framework, and to act as publisher and distributor for a series of individual statements (‘Research matters’), by different  bodies, individuals and partnerships, about very specific research questions – or answers. It is our hope that this will recognise and embrace the cultural diversity of London’s people (and consequently of their material culture) at all stages in its past and, importantly, help to underpin the role that archaeology plays in showing how modern London has grown out of and is linked to the past – and how past landscapes will continue to mould the future.

Summary

This Research framework sets out three interrelated aims for the future of London Archaeology: realising the potential of the London Archaeological Archive; managing the archaeological resource more effectively; and facilitating better focused archaeological research. The LAARC, which opened to the public in February 2002, contains the archives from the majority of the total of 5200 archaeological interventions known to have taken place in the 32 boroughs of Greater London and the City, but most of these archives have not been analysed and are unpublished. The information and proposals presented here are the fruits of an extensive consultation involving over 120 individuals and organisations interested in the archaeology of London (see Chapter 10, Appendix 1). That consultation, and this document, follow on from the archaeological resource assessment presented in The archaeology of Greater London (AGL 2000).

It is the intention of this framework to guide but not proscribe the direction of archaeological research in London. To that end, Chapter 2 briefly outlines the character of both the buried and recorded archaeological resource, including the London Archaeological Archive and current research. Chapters 3–7 present the common-usage chronological periods for London with reference to our current knowledge and emergent research questions and priorities – a research agenda. Selected (rather than comprehensive) bibliographic references to general research areas and current research projects are included in order to try and give an indication of the present direction of archaeological work. The period statements do not pretend to be exhaustive and are not intended as shopping lists from which to select worthy research topics. Researchers may identify valuable subjects which are not specifically referred to here, but it is hoped the framework may act as a catalyst for the development of new ideas and directions in archaeological work.

The review of research priorities can be also be considered through five major research themes to discover what London was like in the past. These are set out in Chapter 8 and can be summarised as: topography and landscape – their diversity across the London region and influence on human activity; development – the relationship between urbanism, rural settlement and other regions; economy – its origins, dynamics and products; people and society – identity, status and beliefs and continuity and change over time.

Chapter 9 considers some of the ways we can move towards a research strategy for London. It describes important initiatives in research and archive access, and goes on to look at how we can develop and nurture a research culture and get more out of London archaeology.

Chapter 10, Appendix 1 lists the many consultees who took part in the development of the Research framework. Appendix 2 summarises the major research themes as a series of points and Appendix 3 sets out strategic objectives. The bibliography is selective but lists many works central to our knowledge of London archaeology, including the very latest publications of 2002 and in preparation.

Introduction

Aims

This Research framework has been driven by three separate but related imperatives: the need to realise the potential of the London Archaeological Archive; the importance of managing the archaeological resource effectively and the desire to target academic endeavour to where it will have greatest effect.

The LAARC represents the largest excavated and recorded archaeological resource in Europe, comprising the majority of data from over 5200 known archaeological interventions. As well as the archives of hundreds of published excavations, it contains a mass of unexamined data and untold stories. The London Archaeological Archive, like many archives across the world, has a speckled history which includes periods when it was closed completely. Today, however, considerable investment has been made to enable researchers to begin to use its data effectively. The publication of a research framework is a vital tool for guiding, facilitating and integrating research by a whole range of individuals and groups that will actively contribute to a deeper and holistic understanding of London’s past.

Officers in local planning authorities have expressed the desirability of incorporating agreed research priorities into conservation plans as a means both of enhancing the credibility of the development control process and of ensuring cost-effectiveness and value for money, while legitimately maximising the intellectual return on expenditure (Olivier 1996; English Heritage 1997, 11). In an age when so much archaeological research stems from property development, the establishment of an agreed research framework offers a vital link between the intellectual and the practical, between ideas and data.

It is widely agreed throughout the archaeological community that understanding derives from rigorous questioning, and that research is therefore best conducted in the context of focused academic debate. Thus researchers need a background against which to frame their research proposals, a yardstick against which to measure their results and a mechanism that provides feedback and publicises findings – and hypotheses.

Notwithstanding these three imperatives, it was felt that a research framework for the London region must shape research and not dictate it. Accordingly, the aim of this document is very particularly to shape research that concerns data held by and destined for the London Archaeological Archive. It aims primarily to guide and integrate the study of the recorded resource, although there is a tacit assumption that the results of that study will inevitably help to inform resource management decisions as well. Ultimately, the aim of this Research framework is to contribute to the integrated study, understanding, conservation and popular appreciation of London’s rich archaeological past.

Purpose – who is the Research framework for?

London represents 500,000 years of superimposed human occupation, the last 2000 years of which have taken the form of intense urban growth. The physical layers of the archaeological record are paralleled by a similar period of conceptual development. Ideas of what is meant by and thought of as London have changed throughout time. London has a multi-cultural, multi- lingual population with differing views and expectations of the past. The origins of many Londoners lie elsewhere, and if they identify with London at all it is with their local area or neighbourhood rather than with the immensity of the modern city.

The challenge is to tell histories and stories that make those people realise that London’s history is theirs. Creating a research framework is the means of harnessing and interpreting the archaeological resource to tell those stories, within a context of conserving the resource itself.

A research framework for London archaeology is therefore for the people of Greater London, for those who manage and curate the archaeological resource (landowners, planners, curators and archivists, developers, conservators, consultants and contractors), and for anyone with an interest in Greater London or wishing to research the archaeology of Greater London, particularly through the LAARC, for whatever reason and at whatever level.

The history of archaeological research strategies in London

Aspirations for a research framework for London archaeology are not new, although the context and approach may be. The publication in 1973 of The future of London’s past was a landmark in terms of heritage management (Biddle and Hudson 1973). Restricting itself to the City of London, it assessed the surviving archaeological resources, compared them with what was known of London’s history and recommended strategies for fieldwork and conservation. This was followed by Time on our side? a more superficial but wide-ranging assessment of archaeology in Greater London (Grimes 1978) and the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society’s (LAMAS) useful summary of the then current state of knowledge (Collins et al 1976).

During the 1990s the understanding of the archaeological resource continued to be updated. English Heritage’s document Exploring our past (English Heritage 1991a) promoted a mix of chronological and thematic strategies and identified landscape types meriting further attention nationally. Regional studies followed: to the east of London a research framework has been produced for the Greater Thames Estuary (Williams and Brown 1999). To the north east, the archaeology of the five eastern counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire have been addressed in a resource assessment (Glazebrook 1997) and a research agenda and strategy (Brown and Glazebrook 2000). A research framework is also being prepared for the east Midlands. National research questions and implementation strategies were again addressed in the consultation document Draft research agenda (English Heritage 1997). In 1998, Capital archaeology (English Heritage 1998a), although not part of the research cycle outlined below, described the framework of understanding of London’s archaeology that guides the work of English Heritage’s Greater London Archaeological Advisory Service (GLAAS) and promotes the thematic analysis of London’s past rather than study by traditional chronological period.

These documents form a sound basis for archaeological research and management in the region in the 21st century, and together with national and international period- and subject-based research frameworks (eg Gamble 1999; Haselgrove et al 2001; James and Millett 2001; see also Olivier 1996, 46–55, for a comprehensive list) enable research to be viewed within a western European, and wider, context.

The archaeology of Greater London (AGL 2000) represented a comprehensive assessment of the state of knowledge of London’s archaeology in the 1990s. It is AGL in particular which forms the basis for identifying and questioning new research agendas for London in this document, as indicated in Chapter 2.

The context of a new research framework for London

The approach

For a research framework to be effective it must represent the involvement of the whole archaeological community. A wide consultation process began in 1998, followed by a series of period-based seminars organised during 1999 (Chapter 10, Appendix 1). A draft setting out archaeological research priorities was first circulated within the Museum of London in February 2000 and went to external consultees in the summer of 2000 (Chapter 10, Appendix 1). The document represented the collective efforts of a very large number of people involved in the archaeology of Greater London.

The approach chosen was based on that promoted by English Heritage (Olivier 1996) which defines three main stages of the research cycle: assessment, agenda and strategy. Here, the resource assessment summarises the available resource and the state of our current understanding of London’s archaeology; the research agenda identifies gaps in our knowledge, the potential of the resource to fill those gaps and objectives for future research; and the research strategy sets out the proposed methods of achieving the stated objectives. The structure of other archaeological research frameworks, for example that for the Greater Thames Estuary (Williams and Brown 1999) helped to inform our approach.

In defining ‘London’, two particular aspects of London archaeology have stood out – the perceived obscurity to London’s present residents of its past, and the tremendous potential of the London Archaeological Archive to inform us of that past. These factors set London archaeology apart from many other areas of the country, and were seen as the key influences in creating an effective research framework.

The perceived obscurity of the past in today’s London

There is and may always have been a tension between London as a capital city and the London region as an ‘umbrella’ for numerous communities. As the largest city in England for most of the period since its foundation by the Romans, and, for a time, the largest conurbation in the world, London claims the attention of researchers at both the national and international level. On the other hand, Londoners themselves are often more focused on the very recent history of their family origins and their own neighbourhoods, the places where they live and work. This may be partly a factor of how London developed, by spreading over smaller settlements, and partly a factor of scale.

Today’s modern cityscape bears little resemblance to historic landscapes, which in much of the London region are particularly heavily obscured. Roman roads may continue to leave their imprint, but suburban development largely conceals the fundamental differences between heavy clay uplands and riverside mud flats, between light gravel terraces and chalk hill slopes. Urban sprawl has swallowed up many individual historic settlements, yet replaced them with neighbourhoods of a distinctive character of importance to those who live and work in them. Adjacent areas with superficially similar building styles may conceal widely varying origins, say in Roman staging posts, farming villages, medieval market towns, moated manors or Edwardian commuter ‘dormitories’. The areas most densely occupied in the Roman and medieval periods now house businesses, and relatively few homes.

The size, complexity and potential of the London Archaeological Archive

The potential of the London Archaeological Archive has scarcely been tapped. Notwithstanding the thousands of evaluation, excavation and research archives contained in the LAARC, the pre-1990s emphasis on excavations in the historic urban core of London has produced a wealth of records from deeply stratified sites and exceptionally well-preserved finds and environmental material from an abundance of waterlogged deposits. There are over 20 local archaeological societies in the Greater London area, and many more local historical and amenity societies, each with their own research ambitions. Most of the 32 boroughs of London have their own museums or heritage centres that complement the Museum of London’s capital-wide collections, which are undoubtedly of world importance. There is also a very considerable amount of archaeological research presently underway, undertaken by societies, universities and professional field archaeology units.

Illustration map of Greater London showing all the boroughs and the surrounding counties.
Fig 1 The boroughs of Greater London and the City of London

Definitions of London

The LAARC takes as its definition of London the 32 boroughs and the City of London (Fig 1). The research questions and strategies outlined in this document are therefore primarily concerned with data contained within – or destined for deposition in – the LAARC.

It goes without saying, however, that London as a geographical entity has been viewed very differently at different times, and that its modern administrative boundaries cannot readily be imposed on past precepts; it is impossible to define a single study area that makes sense in terms of historical geography.

Illustrated map of London in the context of the south-east of England, with all the surrounding counties marked
Fig 2 The south-east of England, showing Greater London and the surrounding counties

Equally, to many peoples – past and present – London is more a concept than a geographical entity. It is function, form, and socio-economic and political factors that determine how people viewed, visited, inhabited, traded with and generally treated London, or indeed the myriad different parts of London. Research into London’s past must, without doubt, address the influences of and relationships with other societies – both well beyond London and closer neighbours (Fig 2).

Outline of London boroughs over a geology map of the area.
Fig 3 Drift and solid geology of the Greater London region (copyright British Geological Survey)

At the same time London’s shape has been influenced by the region’s landscape, with settlement patterns reflecting variations in the underlying geomorphology of clays, gravels and silts (Fig 3), a phenomenon which is considered in more detail in Chapter 3.

To avoid confusion, and accepting the arbitrary nature of such definitions, the following terms have been adopted throughout this document.

London region: the geographical area of Greater London and its surroundings, the lower Thames valley

Greater London: the geographical area covered by the current 32 London boroughs and the City of London

west London gravels: the terrace gravels of the Thames in west London around Heathrow airport east London: the low-lying areas north of the Thames in east London; marshlands in later prehistory

north Kent: the chalk downlands south of the Thames

south-west London: the clays and gravels of north-east Surrey and the Wandle floodplain

London: the historic urban core of Westminster, the City and Southwark

the city of London: the urban centre of London at any point in time

the City of London: the medieval and later City

Westminster: medieval Thorney Island and its later development

north Southwark: the area of the Roman settlement on the south bank of the River Thames and its later development

Fleet Valley, Walbrook Valley, Wandle Valley, Colne Valley, Lea Valley etc: the floodplains of these tributaries of the Thames

Collection of ceramic bowls and lamps.
Fig 4 Lamps and tazze forming a cremation group from a 2nd-century AD roadside cemetery at 165 Great Dover Street, Southwark

The structure of this document

It is the intention throughout this document to create a pragmatic framework that will guide but not proscribe archaeological research, and to create sustainable mechanisms to update the agenda.

Photograph of a people looking round a museum gallery.
Fig 5 The Spitalfields Archaeology Centre was visited by over 27,000 people during the excavation work at Spitalfields

Resource assessment

The detailed assessment of London’s archaeological resource was presented in AGL (2000). Here, in Chapter 2, a summary of the character of the archaeological resource that is ‘available’ to researchers is given, with particular reference to data held in or due to be deposited in the LAARC. To complement the statement in AGL, which summarised our understanding of London archaeology in the 1990s, an outline is given of some of the major research programmes that are currently underway involving LAARC data.

A research strategy for London

This section (Chapter 9) describes the actions proposed in order to address the research agenda questions raised in previous sections.

The implementation strategy is set within the three philosophical parameters described above, and is focused on delivery to all the users identified. Importantly, the strategy is founded on sustainability: mechanisms are described for reviewing, revising and regularly updating thoughts on the research themes, involving the collaboration of a wide range of researchers. In addition to the proposed regular review of the Research framework itself, as an umbrella document, a new series of widely disseminated bulletins entitled ‘Research matters’ will be a key tool in developing ideas on different research themes and evolving project proposals.

Photograph of a person standing in water (upto their waist) with a survey pole.
Fig 6 Surveying the tidal reach of Deptford Creek for the Environment Agency

Period-based research priorities

Taking AGL as our starting point, the common-usage chronological periods are addressed with reference to emergent research questions (Chapters 3–7).

Inevitably, like the statements in AGL, these represent snapshot, or moment in time commentaries (rather than period summaries) and will need review. They may be viewed as the research priorities for the next decade with the caveat that we must expect that these priorities will change, perhaps subtly, perhaps dramatically, well before ten years have elapsed. The reasons for identifying particular research questions or priorities are discussed, and then summarised as Framework objectives. The period statements contain selected bibliographic references to major research projects that are currently underway or proposed.

The Framework objectives are coded for ease of reference as follows: prehistory P1–P6; Roman R1–R13; Saxon S1–S8; medieval M1–M6; London after 1500 L1–L10.

The research agenda – major themes

The proposed review mechanism is based on thematic analysis. Therefore, a small set of research themes are put forward here (Chapter 8), not with the intention of providing an inclusive or exhaustive list, but as a means of helping to integrate current and future research initiatives and of focusing our understanding of London’s past as it develops. Many of the themes emerged as prominent during the preparation of AGL, and in some cases are being addressed at least in part by existing programmes of research, such as some of the projects cited in the period statements.

As with the period-based research priorities the Framework objectives are coded as follows for ease of reference: topography and landscapes TL1–TL4; development TD1–TD7; economy TE1–TE4; people and society TS1–TS8; continuity and change TC1–TC4.

Group of people standing in an archaeological trench.
Fig 7 Teaching extra-mural students recording techniques at the Birkbeck College-MoLAS training dig

Acknowledgements

This document is the product of comments and contributions from a large number of people who care about London archaeology.

The initial collation of material and review of current and proposed research initiatives, in order to compile a research agenda, was carried out by Roberta Tomber, with additional research carried out by Ellen McAdam. Contributions to the review were made by Nick Bateman, Lyn Blackmore, Philippa Bradley, John Clark, Jonathan Cotton, Robert Cowie, Ellen McAdam, Gordon Malcolm, Gustav Milne, Taryn Nixon, Jacqui Pearce, Peter Rauxloh, Louise Rayner, Peter Rowsome, John Schofield, John Shepherd, Jane Sidell, Barney Sloane, Hedley Swain, Roberta Tomber and Angela Wardle.

Consultation drafts of the research agenda were edited by Ellen McAdam and Hedley Swain.

The editing and creation of a Research framework was undertaken by Taryn Nixon with further text contributions from David Bowsher, Jonathan Cotton, Gordon Malcolm, Gustav Milne, Peter Rowsome, John Schofield, Jane Sidell, Barney Sloane and Hedley Swain. The project was managed by Taryn Nixon, Peter Rowsome and Hedley Swain. The summary was translated into French by Dominique de Moulins and into German by Friederike Hammer. The index was compiled by Susanne Atkin. We would also like to thank the British Geological Survey (BGS) for their kind permission to use the geology map data.

Comments were received from a very wide range of consultees, who are acknowledged in Chapter 10, Appendix 1. Grateful thanks are also extended to CoLAT, the City of London Archaeological Trust, for their comments during the prepartion of the Research framework, and for their commitment to supporting archaeological research which will help to meet the aims of the Research framework.

The costs of preparing this document were mainly met by the Museum of London with the costs of publication borne by English Heritage to whom we would like to express our gratitude.

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