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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