[SunkenCiv]

Canal building for drainage and transportation caught on in a large way centuries after this; previously no precursors were considered, AFAIK. By way of analogy, the famous (well, sort of famous) Offa's Dyke, constructed by King Offa of Mercia along his western frontier with the Welsh kingdoms, was once upon a time seen as the model for Wat's Dyke. Turns out Wat's is two or three centuries older than Offa's Dyke and was constructed by the post-Roman kingdom of Wroxeter. The 5th century Wansdyke is also (barely) post-Roman, and ran from Maes Knoll hillfort in the west to south of Marlborough. There are at least eight others, of various lengths, culminating in Offa's Dyke.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Interesting Times]

Ping.

[SunkenCiv]

Bravo for the Wansdyke Project! From the links page:

The Car Dyke
http://homepages.which.net/~rex/bourne/cardyke.htm

[snip] The great channel known as the Car Dyke was probably constructed early in the second century AD and built purely for drainage purposes to produce more fertile land for corn crops... It was most certainly one of the greatest engineering feats carried out by the engineers of the mighty Roman Empire which ruled Britain for almost 400 years from 43 AD to 410 AD and although unlikely, the popular theory persists that it was built to carry food and supplies from East Anglia for their advancing armies in the north, the main cargoes being corn, wool for uniforms, leather for tents and shields, and salted meat. The construction of the canal and subsequent use to provide a continuous inland water transport system from Cambridge to York was responsible for the many communities that sprang up on its banks and have now become established towns and villages. The waterway between Bourne and Morton has shown evidence of the existence of soak ditches parallel to the canal to take the water from the field ditches and discharge it into the canal, a forerunner of our present fenland drainage system. [end]

[purpleraine]

Thanx

[centurion316]

The Romans were masters of hydrology and used this knowlege to engineer vast aqueduct systems to supply water to urban areas. At one time Britain possessed this level of knowledge and technology. I find it interesting that this skill was passed on to medievel institutions. The more we learn about the “Dark Ages”, the more clear it becomes that the shift from a Roman civilization to Saxon England was much more gradual than we have been led to believe. We have been led astray by the absence of written records.

[WoofDog123]

Folks interesting in the general topic of aerial archaeology, crop marks of ancient structures and sites, etc., should check out Prehistoric Britain from the Air, by Darvill, NOT by Bord (there are 2 totally different books with the same name).

Tons of pictures showing crop marks of any number of oddities and curiosities. If you are near one of these sites and have seen the pictures, you can sometimes see the marks lightly from the ground yourself. More generally, it makes you look at slight color/tone differences in archeological or other crop areas a lot differently.

[norton]

Fun stuff,
Thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

To the left in an area that was once Whittlesea Mere and there is a pile of Bog Oak that has been pulled to the surface and in the corner of a Farmer's field. It is not like normal wood, but a cross between wood and coal, and cannot be cut with an ordinary saw, no more that coal can be cut with a hand saw. The question is, how and why it is brought to the surface? It is common practice for farmers to deep plough these fields to try and bring nourishment in the peat to the surface. Owing to peat shrinkage, these Bog Oaks are often caught by a plough, and are therefore a nuisance to the farmer, who pulls them to surface of the land, and places them in a pile. This is not a common sight nowadays, as most of the Bog Oaks have already been pulled to the surface, as peat is shrinking slower. -- Geography and Geology of Fens Agriculture, Natural History, Food Growing and Roman and Saxon History