Romney Marsh: Environmental change and human occupation in a coastal lowland.

Bell, Martin

JILL EDDISON, MARK GARDINER & ANTONY LONG (ed.). (OUCA Monograph 46.) xii+220 pages, illustrations. 1998. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology; 0-94781646-1 paperback [pounds]25.

Wetland archaeological research in Britain has tended to be pursued through large-scale and in recent years costly major projects. The work of the Romney Marsh Research Trust provides an alternative approach which draws on, and gives a full and independent voice to, scholars from very diverse disciplinary backgrounds - especially in this volume coastal change, palynology, medieval archaeology and history. This is the third volume to be published in a decade by the Trust following Eddison & Green (1988) and Eddison (1995).

The marsh's geomorphic origins continue to engage attention. The offshore seismic (Chirp) study by Dix et al. showed no evidence of a previously hypothesized major gravel barrier to seaward, the marsh being founded on a massive sand body. Borehole survey is on an impressive scale, one study by Spencer involving 3400 boreholes and two transects of 10 km. Synthesis by Long and others shows it is increasingly possible to develop a spatial picture of wetland history. Peat formation began around 6000 cal BP in protected valleys in the west of the marsh and spread east. Subsequent inundation of the peat from a tidal inlet in the east was most extensive around 2300 cal BP, although an island of raised bog stood clear of brackish influence until it was inundated about 1000 cal BP. Together with other late peats in marginal valleys, this could provide important evidence of continuity and change in the pattern of wetland exploitation from later prehistory to the Medieval period (Bell & Dark 1998).

In the west of the marsh, no later Holocene marine entry seems to have been effected until barrier-breaching in the 13th century. Even so, the existence of many Domesday salterns in this area surely implies a significant, if perhaps only temporary, breach at that time. Catastrophic changes to a shingle barrier are shown by Eddison to have determined the short-lived dominance of the port of Old Winchelsea, inundated c. 1244, and the changing fortunes of Rye.

Archaeological evidence of prehistoric activity remains limited. Pollen analysis, by Waller and others, shows that on the clay lithologies to the north there is little evidence of prehistoric activity during the period of peat formation whilst there is much more evidence of activity on the sandy lithologies to the west, which would repay fieldwalking and targeted investigation of the wetland/dryland interface. Particularly exciting among the archaeological evidence is Barber's work at Lydd Quarry, an excavated Medieval landscape 0.8 by 0.5 km. This originated in the 12th century from two diverging trackways which articulated a ditched landscape with dispersed settlements. Coinage is mostly lacking in settlements but concentrated in trackways and on a fair site elsewhere in the marsh. Artefacts from the Lydd Quarry site are shown to come mainly from the Romney area to the east rather than Rye to the west. Coinage, trackways and artefact sources all emphasize the value of a landscape approach and the importance of networks of social communication rather than sites in isolation. Occupation sites are mostly lacking in identifiable building plans. Settlements in this landscape were mostly 13th- and 14th-century and there is evidence for marshland depopulation from the 15th century, which is also seen in historical sources with the growing importance of stock rearing. Historical changes of demography and landholding size are reviewed by Draper, Gardiner and Hipkin. Here we see the difficulties of generalizing from the particulars of the archaeological landscape to the wider picture provided by historic sources on a range of spatial scales. Other historic aspects of particular archaeological interest are Dobson's elegant and persuasive account of the impact of malaria on the marsh from the 17th to 19th centuries. This serves to highlight the importance of disease as an environmental factor and also to illustrate its linkage with social factors. Contemporary accounts provide hints of a despised and unhealthy underclass of marshmen, their destinies, economic and spiritual, largely controlled by those who lived in healthier places. Material remains of this distinctive wetland way of life are seen in 'Lookers' huts' discussed by Reeves & Eve. This was a structural form occupied by those who looked after the extensive flocks usually owned by several, often nonmarsh-dwelling landowners, during the period of widespread sheep pasture in the 17th to early 20th centuries. The strength of historical research on Romney Marsh means that there is a good foundation for consideration of the relationship between wetland and dryland. The extent of seasonal movement of stock and its implications for archaeological evidence of settlement patterns in the Medieval period is a topic for future consideration.

Interpretation of this wetland landscape is implicitly, but not explicitly, retrogressive. It works from the detailed historically based picture of the post-Medieval period towards an increasing understanding of the Medieval landscape to which archaeology now makes its distinctive contribution. There is, as yet, much less idea of how the landscape worked in pre-Medieval times, particularly prehistory when the environment is increasingly well understood but remains to be peopled, those sites being more deeply buried. The search for the earlier inhabitants of Romney Marsh is a challenge which the Trust faces in its second decade. Meanwhile much has been achieved which deserves comparison with the very best of wetland research because of the strongly interdisciplinary and plural nature of the approach and a particular emphasis on a high-quality palaeoenvironmental record and historical research.

Department of Archaeology, University of Reading

M.G.Bell@reading.ac.uk

References

BELL, M. & P. DARK. 1998. Continuity and change: environmental archaeology in historic periods, in J. Bayley (ed.) Science in archaeology: an agenda for the future: 17993. London: English Heritage.

EDDISON, J. (ed.). 1995. Romney Marsh: the debatable ground. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology. Monograph 41.

EDDISON, J. & C. GREEN (ed.). 1988. Romney Marsh: Evolution, occupation, reclamation. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology. Monograph 24.