Recently work has summarised the evidence from monitoring projects in England’s wetlands (Williams 2012), noting that both Etton and the Sweet Track were the first sites studied (way back in 1982!). As a review paper this work reiterated the observations of numerous earlier studies in outlining a number of recommendations for best practice approaches to monitoring. The current paper will not regurgitate the observations outlined in Williams (2012) but it will endeavour to outline areas where targeted research has highlighted new considerations when developing an understanding of an archaeological site in its landscape context.
With this in mind, there is no avoiding the fact that climate change scenarios have the potential to impact on inland wetlands through increased storminess, run-off and erosion, changing seasonal patterns of saturation and water deficit etc., and that monitoring, whilst in need of a targeted strategic approach to its implementation, is now in need of reorientation to cope with the potential for ‘boom or bust’ scenarios in water availability. Despite assertions that wetter is better, England’s wetlands vary considerably at the intra- and inter-site levels and no single approach to in-situ monitoring is going to suffice into the future as the site-specific variables react differently depending on the nature of the soils, pH., temperature, saturation, redox potentials and importantly, the microbial community extant at different levels through the profile.
Utilising on-going water table monitoring at Sutton Common, South Yorkshire alongside multi-proxy data from Newington, Notts., this paper will consider some of the potentials and pitfalls that need to be addressed as climate impacts begin to influence the in-situ burial conditions at archaeological sites in the lowlands of England.

Location

Norcroft Centre, University of Bradford