Dividing the Land

Field systems are ubiquitous features of the English countryside and despite much work on their character having taken place for almost a century relatively little is known about their chronology. This project addressed this imbalance by utilising the research potential of developer-funded scientific dating (which provides an estimated c 80% of archaeological radiocarbon dating in England) together with data from published sources to produce a detailed narrative of the chronological development of field systems in Yorkshire and the north Midlands (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire), across all periods. In so doing addressing three research topics identified in the Historic England Research Agenda: #inform by producing new narratives from big data; #innovate by using dating and chronology; and #understand by capturing the significance of rural heritage.