Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (787 page)

 
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Archaeological work that focuses on essentially terrestrial areas that are permanently or periodically waterlogged, for example peat bogs, salt marshes, river and lake margins, and the inter-tidal zone around the shores of large lakes and oceans. Such areas generally have good preservation of organic materials such as timber, bone, and textiles. Work in areas that are permanently submerged below standing water of one sort or another is generally referred to as
UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY
or
MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY
.

 
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Process of recovering finds and ecofacts from excavated archaeological deposits by passing them through one or more screens or sieves either suspended in water or washed through with running water, in some cases under pressure. The water acts to break down the finer sediments, removing them from the larger clasts and objects that are left on the sieve. The size of mesh used in the sieves varies from less than 1mm up to 10mm or more according to what kinds of material are being sought. In most modern excavations only a defined sample (e.g. 20 per cent) of stratified deposits are wet sieved. See also
FLOATATION
.

 
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See
NEW ALBION, CALIFORNIA, USA
.

 
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Deserted medieval village covering about 16ha in a small valley amid the rolling chalk downland of the Yorkshire Wolds of northeast England. Visible earthworks include roads, a fishpond, the foundation of a manor house, and 30 peasant houses set out in regular rows. Extensively excavated between 1950 and 1990 under the direction of John Hurst and Maurice Beresford , this site has made an important contribution to understanding the development and desertion of traditional medieval villages in England. The earliest occupation on the site appears to have been in Anglo-Saxon times, perhaps from the 8th century
ad
onwards. Over the ensuing centuries a regular pattern developed with timber longhouses each set in a yard or ‘toft’, the holdings being ranged along the main streets. There were two manor houses of more substantial construction, and a church established in the 12th century
ad
. Around the village there were open fields and paddocks. It was originally the centre of a large parish containing five villages, four of them now deserted. Wharram Percy itself was gradually abandoned in the 14th–15th centuries and was completely deserted by about ad 1500.
[Sum.: M. Beresford and J. Hurst , 1990,
Wharram Percy: deserted medieval village
. London: Batsford and English Heritage]

 
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Colloquial name for a mine, common in Devon and Cornwall in the southwest of England.

 
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