The Welsh Marches and the PAS: Possible ‘productive’ sites and their significance

Pauline M Clarke

Abstract


The Portable Antiquities Scheme has resulted in the recording of over 1.8 million artefacts, predominantly of metal and from all archaeological periods, which have been found across England and Wales. This corpus has contributed greatly to academic research, one strand of which is the identification of early medieval ‘productive’ sites. These are potential areas of activity, and this data is particularly pertinent for the identification of early medieval sites, as other evidence – for structures and ceramic use, for example – is scarce. This article seeks to identify such sites across modern borders in the Welsh Marches, an area of little developer-led archaeology. This cross-border approach is still relatively uncommon in archaeology but one which is called for in many current Research Frameworks. The article identifies the sites and discusses their possible purpose and significance, including their relationship to Offa’s and Wat’s Dykes.

Keywords


Marches; early medieval; site; artefact; border; Wales; Dykes

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23914/odj.v7i0.14332

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