Preface

Summary

The origins of this book may help to explain its existence, structure and content. Having undertaken doctoral research jointly supervised by a geomorphologist and a palaeoecologist which had strong archaeological implications, I was by the mid-1980s firmly situated in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to fluvial environments. Whilst at Leicester University my contacts grew with researchers in other departments interested in alluvial environments, most notably Zoology, Botany and Archaeology. Increasing contact with archaeologists both at Leicester University and in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Archaeological Units stimulated my interest in geoarchaeology and the cross-fertilisation of geomorphology and archaeology. This was given a research foundation when I realised that archaeologists were regularly digging large holes in floodplains and valued stratigraphic assistance. I worked first on the Raunds Area Project, Northamptonshire, and since then have worked on many alluvial sites in the Midlands of England and elsewhere. In 1989 I took a joint appointment between Geography and Archaeology at Leicester and began to teach environmental archaeology, which included geomorphology, to archaeologists. Contact with archaeologists on a daily basis has I hope benefited this book, not least through the undermining of the simplistic and naive tendencies concerning culture and society that are all too typically held by natural scientists.

This book stems from this history and a desire to bring together work in a variety of disciplines pertinent to the study of alluvial archaeological sites and floodplain geomorphology and palaeoecology.