Microfossil provenance of British Iron Age lowland ceramic artefacts

陶瓷是后来史前生活的许多方面的中心，陶器和粘土在许多社会中具有强大的实用和隐喻作用。在过去的30年里，根据陶瓷织物特有的宏观内含物来定义陶瓷织物，并提出所用原材料的来源，已经成为标准的考古实践。然而，表征和来源研究主要局限于具有独特岩石类型的粘土和包裹体，例如来自吕宋半岛的蛇纹岩。相比之下，英国南部和东部的大部分地区由沉积矿床组成，没有矿物学上离散的露头。因此，对史前英国大部分地区陶瓷生产和交换组织的调查受到了阻碍。而陶瓷的矿物成分来源于沉积岩系列可能是模糊的，这些岩石的微体化石签名可以提供一个强有力的指示物源。在这里，我们使用微体化石调查的粘土和陶瓷在铁器时代的定居点Burrough山，在东米德兰的少数几个丘陵之一的原材料的来源。在该遗址的先前挖掘表明，从新石器时代到公元4世纪的占领，在铁器时代的占领最密集的时期，当山是该地区人口的主要城市中心。伯鲁山坐落在一个密集的铁器时代的农场和定居点景观。正在进行的五年工作方案的考古证据已经证明了居住在这里的社区的广泛接触，但这项工作迄今为止仅限于相对罕见，高价值或异国情调的物品，如quern stones。在2010年和2011年期间的鉴定已经确定了公元前4世纪到公元1世纪的一系列陶瓷在主要入口处，并从房屋和占领存款内的北方边缘的山堡。然而，在伯鲁山和整个东米德兰兹郡，铁器时代社区的陶瓷作品主要是一种风格保守、地理分布广泛、年代久远的陶瓷传统，被称为"刻痕陶器"。虽然其结构的宏观多样性早已得到认可，但这种材料的来源和来源却很难确定。圆形房屋上的泥涂抹和用于建造城墙的粘土构成了铁器时代在山堡中采购粘土的其他例子。考古调查已经确定了几百个存储坑内的山堡和一系列的圆房子的李的壁垒，以及一个外墙外定居点立即外的壁垒以东的山堡。2011年和2012年的调查将对每个地区进行取样，以获得定居点物质的横截面。Burrough Hill位于中生代沉积碳酸盐岩和碎屑岩景观中，其上涂抹着晚第四纪的冰碛物。东米德兰兹中生代岩石的微体古生物学有很好的文献记载。不太为人所知的是冰碛物的微化石特征，其中包含从约克郡和林肯郡白垩岩群回收的白垩纪微化石，以及更多来自当地的侏罗纪微化石。在伯鲁山进行的试点研究已经确定了陶瓷和用于建造墙壁的粘土材料中含有丰富的介形虫和有孔虫。结合详细评估的微体化石和沉积特征的固体和漂移沉积物附近的山堡，该网站提供了一个很好的案例研究，以评估地质来源的陶瓷和粘土材料在沉积景观，因此，我们的研究具有广泛的潜力，询问其他考古遗址在英国的景观。

Ceramics were central to many aspects of later prehistoric life and the pottery and the clays from which they were made had a powerful practical and metaphorical role in many societies. Over the last 30 years it has become standard archaeological practice to define ceramic fabrics in terms of their characteristic macroscopic inclusions and to suggest sources of the raw materials used. Characterisation and sourcing studies have, however, largely been restricted to clays and inclusions with distinctive rock types such as serpentinite from the Lizard peninsula. Much of southern and eastern Britain by contrast, consists of sedimentary deposits with an absence of mineralogically discrete outcrops. Consequently, investigation of the organisation of ceramic production and exchange in much of prehistoric Britain is hampered. Whereas the mineralogical content of ceramics sourced from sedimentary rock successions may be indistinct, the microfossil signature of such rocks can provide a powerful indication of provenance. Here we use microfossils to investigate the source of raw materials used in clays and ceramics at the Iron Age settlement of Burrough Hill, one of the few hill-forts in the East Midlands. Previous excavations at the site demonstrate occupation from the Neolithic to the 4th century AD, with the most intensive period of occupation during the Iron Age when the hill was a major pre-urban centre for the population of the region. Burrough Hill sat in a densely occupied Iron Age landscape of farms and settlements. Archaeological evidence from an ongoing five-year programme of work already attests to the wide ranging contacts of the community living here, but this work has so far been limited to comparatively rare, high value or exotic items such as quern stones. Excavations during 2010 and 2011 have identified a range of ceramics from 4th century BC to 1st century AD at the main entrance and from houses and occupation deposits inside the northern edge of the hill-fort. At Burrough Hill and across the East Midlands generally, however, the ceramic repertoire of Iron Age communities is dominated by a stylistically conservative, geographically widespread and chronologically long-lived tradition of ceramics known as 'Scored wares'. Whilst the macroscopic diversity of its fabrics has long been recognised, it has rarely been possible to characterise and provenance this material.Mud daub from the round houses and clay used in the construction of the ramparts comprise other examples of Iron Age clay procurement in the hill-fort. Archaeological investigation has already identified several hundred storage pits within the hill-fort and a series of round houses to the lee of the ramparts as well as an extramural settlement immediately outside the ramparts to the east of the hill-fort. Excavations in 2011 and 2012 will sample each of these areas to get a cross section of material from the settlement.Burrough Hill is situated in a landscape of Mesozoic sedimentary carbonate and clastic rocks over which are smeared tills of late Quaternary age. The micropalaeontology of the Mesozoic rocks of the East Midlands is well documented. Less well known is the microfossil signature of the tills, which contain Cretaceous microfossils recycled from the Chalk Group of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire mixed with more locally derived Jurassic microfossils. Pilot studies at Burrough Hill already identify a rich repository of ostracods and foraminifera in ceramics, and in clay materials used to the construct walls. In conjunction with a detailed evaluation of the microfossil and sedimentological signature of the solid and drift deposits of the immediate vicinity of the hill-fort, the site provides an excellent case study by which to assess the geological provenance of ceramic and clay materials in a sedimentary landscape, and our study thus has widespread potential for interrogating other archaeological sites in the British landscape.