Aerial Archaeology in Britain

This is a collection of Archaeology in Britain visible from the air, I have just started it so the collections slightly thin. The collection consists largely of ridge and furrow ploughing. I would also like people to post there own locations so we can build up a large collection of places in Britain.

This collection includes any archaeological feature that can be seen on Google earth.





Intresting Related posts =
British and German Heavy Artillary
Megalithic Monuments of the British Isles
Southend Second World War defences
Ironstone Mines

~Josie~

This is outstanding. Thank you.

The Mystery Of The Marks In The Ground

All of the below marks can be found with proximity to RAF / Ex RAF Airfields, All examples can be found in that distinctive Crisscross pattern.

The average Length is about 50 Meters in length although the largest at Cranfield measuring 100 meters about double the size of the others.

Possible explanastions could be

1) Huts / Temporary buildings
2) Some sort of cold war use
3) Trial Trenches

Seeing these features are seasonal they cannot be seen all round for example using live local or Multimap , the marks at Cranfield disappear.
The below picture confused me even more, similar alignments but these are in 3 strait lines, also they look much larger.








~Josie~

Great work JosieNorden!

Have you seen this post? If not, go check it out. I'm sure you'll find it interesting!

i love this post!
...that already has some consequences...
thank you!
g

Great post Josie.I have been to a few of the sites posted,manly the Roman ones.Must admit I do enjoy the Time Team shows and there use of G,E.Must drop by the UK again.
Martin

In March 1488, John Swafield evicted sixty people from Burston and turned their arable land and their village into sheep pasture. That process increased the value of the land three-fold since wool was more profitable than arable.

For a 1966 aerial photo see page 122 of Beresford's "Medieval England - An Aerial Survey", second edition 1979.

The placemark includes a "Boundaries" folder that you can turn off to see the crop marks more clearly.

Note that, more than 500 years later, sheep still graze here...

These earthworks are the waste material from medieval iron pits, deposited around the openings of shallow shafts that led down to the ore bed. The shafts have now collapsed but, in the hollows left by subsidence, trees and bushes have found protection. There is no evidence that iron was worked here after the sixteenth century.

Zoom in and you can make out the remnants of ridge-and-furrow ploughing around the four bottom-left pits, but the 1953 aerial photo on page 257 of Beresford's "Medieval England - An Aerial Survey", second edition 1979, clearly shows that the ploughing predates the pits. Since the working of the pits began in the late twelfth century, all of this site was arable farmland over 800 years ago.



Photo � Copyright Chris Allen

The medieval common man relied on arable crops to feed his family. Wheat was the staple diet from which his carbohydrate intake came.

What about protein? The game in the woods and forests was the preserve of the upper classes and they protected this resource well. And countless villages were lost when the land owner evicted the tenants and turned their arable fields into sheep pasture. What was the common man to do?

In the lowland counties settlements arose around rivers and streams, which were often dammed to make fish ponds, giving a ready supply of fresh protein through most of the year.

In the less-fertile hill country, enclosed, artificial rabbit warrens were common. Rabbits, introduced by William the Conqueror, were a source of protein and provided fur for warm clothing.

The rectangular depressions with curved ends - "pillow mounds" - in this GE view are the remnants of medieval man's rabbit farming.

These could be from Operation Crabstick


Please see this post for another find <<<

best regards

MM