A Late Roman well at Heslington East, York: ritual or routine practices?

Steve Roskams; Cath Neal; Jane Richardson; Ruth Leary

doi:10.11141/ia.34.5

A Late Roman well at Heslington East, York: ritual or routine practices?

Steve Roskams, Cath Neal, Jane Richardson, Ruth Leary

Archaeology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The supply of fresh water is a central requirement for human settlement. This paper discusses evidence associated with the construction, use and demise of a late-Roman well recently excavated at Heslington East near York, UK. It seeks to suggest that, by a holistic analysis of all archaeological evidence, we can distinguish the ideological from the functional dynamics that made up the site formation processes within this feature. The assemblages that evidence these activities might be considered mundane in some respects but their integrated assessment, along with a detailed examination of depositional and formation processes in the feature, produces compelling evidence for what has been termed ‘structured deposition’.

Original language	English
Number of pages	24
Journal	Internet Archaeology
Volume	34
Issue number	34
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.34.5
Publication status	Published - 2013

Bibliographical note

This article is Open Access, made possible by the generous support of the Departmental Research Committee, Department of Archaeology, University of York. Except where otherwise noted, content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s), the title of the work, the Internet Archaeology journal and the relevant URL/DOI.

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10.11141/ia.34.5

May13Revision
This article is Open Access, made possible by the generous support of the Departmental Research Committee, Department of Archaeology, University of York. Except where otherwise noted, content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s), the title of the work, the Internet Archaeology journal and the relevant URL/DOI.
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Cite this

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title = "A Late Roman well at Heslington East, York: ritual or routine practices?",

abstract = "The supply of fresh water is a central requirement for human settlement. This paper discusses evidence associated with the construction, use and demise of a late-Roman well recently excavated at Heslington East near York, UK. It seeks to suggest that, by a holistic analysis of all archaeological evidence, we can distinguish the ideological from the functional dynamics that made up the site formation processes within this feature. The assemblages that evidence these activities might be considered mundane in some respects but their integrated assessment, along with a detailed examination of depositional and formation processes in the feature, produces compelling evidence for what has been termed {\textquoteleft}structured deposition{\textquoteright}. ",

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