Dear Hugh,
Not at all negative and entirely sensible. I hope that I didn't give the impression of believing that all sites and finds should be given specific dates according to the terms that I set out? By strictly sticking to certain terms, I meant to say that I strictly apply them where appropriate. If I have a Beaker, for example, I would call it late Neolithic-early Bronze Age, rather than early Bronze Age. Some people probably now call it Chalcolithic, as we may well discover when that book is published. I did only say that in the context of answering Helen's originally question about why her dates overlapped. Also, looking at Crispin's email, it makes a lot more sense now. The results from my test search covered all counties, by the way; they weren't just Lincolnshire ones. Sorry if I sounded as if I were examining your database!
Best
Emily
On 24 Mar 2010, at 13:14, Winfield, Hugh wrote:
> Emily,
>
> Although Gateway can't search exclusively for finds and sites within a
> specific date range (at the moment), HBSMR can. Obviously though this
> requires the information to have been entered into the database.
> Of the 11 sites in the NELC HBSMR database that come up as Bronze Age,
> none come up for just the Early Bronze Age. This is because when I
> entered the sites and finds into the database I was hesitant to assign
> such a specific date range to artefacts that were identified decades ago
> (or in some cases, in the 19th century).
> As another example I also leave Round Barrows as Prehistoric until field
> walking or excavations can confirm that they are indeed what they appear
> to be. The most notable example of this is our Scheduled round barrow at
> Hatcliffe, which appears to overly ridge and furrow earthworks on our
> 1940s aerial photographs.
>
> I hope I'm not coming across as wholly negative, but I like to keep
> things consistent and going whole-heartedly down the Early/Mid/Late
> route or similar might mean that sites and finds get accidentally left
> out of research.
>
> Hugh
>
> Hugh Winfield
> Archaeologist
> Development Management
> Regeneration Department
> North East Lincolnshire Council
> Origin Two, Origin Way
> Europarc, Grimsby
> North East Lincolnshire
> DN37 9TZ
> Tel: (01472) 32 3586 Fax: (01472) 32 4216
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Issues related to Historic Environment Records
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Emily Edwards
> Sent: 23 March 2010 16:29
> To: Winfield, Hugh
> Subject: Re: Bronze Age dates query
>
> So you can, I have just tested it out on Heritage Gateway.
> I put in 2400-1700 cal BC and it brought up everything with either date
> in the description and many results that didn't seem to be relevant at
> all. I would then have to trawl through all of the results (which amount
> to many, in most cases) to pick out the ones that were actually
> relevant.
> It seems to be the case that each HBSMR uses its own date ranges and
> approaches to dating constituent parts of a site and that sherds of
> different periods are clumped together; I have just spotted an example
> where the entry says sherd: middle Bronze Age to early Iron Age.
>
> If that was all standardised and if the phrase late Neolithic-early
> Bronze Age was used whenever relevant (or the date ranges more specific)
> or alternatively if the databases were all clever enough to lead the
> researcher to specific relevant entries, then it would be much easier.
>
> All the Best
>
> Emily Edwards
> Honorary Research Associate with the Institute of Archaeology and
> Antiquity at the University of Birmingham
>
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