Trent Valley GeoArchaeology
Catchment Tributaries of the River Trent
The Trent Tributaries project is a two-year research programme, based at the HP VISTA Centre, University of Birmingham, investigating the impact of catchment tributaries on the geoarchaeology of the River Trent. The project is lead by principal investigators Dr Andy J Howard and Mr Keith Challis. The aims of the research are:
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To describe and elucidate the known archaeological and palaeoenvironmental resource of the River’s Idle and Dove, two principal tributary valleys of the River Trent that are affected by mineral extraction.
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To assess within a chronostratigraphic framework, the role that human activities such as deforestation and natural processes such as climate change have played in the evolution of these tributary valley floors.
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To use this information to help heritage managers assess how these human and natural factors may have influenced archaeological preservation and aid in the design of future prospection/mitigation strategies.
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To use our understanding of these tributary valleys to assess the role their evolution may have played in the development of the main valley floor of the River Trent; for example, increased flood frequency and magnitude resulting in incision and erosion, or the delivery of fine grained sediment resulting in alluviation. Conclusions with implications for heritage management will be disseminated to the relevant regional curators.
Additional work will also be undertaken in two other smaller tributary valleys (the Doverbeck and Devon) with contrasting physiographic and hence hydrological regimes, which also contain sand and gravel deposits. Their study will provide the opportunity to test hypotheses developed during the more intensive survey of the two principal tributary valley floors.
Project Document Archive
The fist year of research is now complete and reports are available for download below.
Download
a
summary of the project
design (2mb pdf)
Download
the complete
assessment report (50mb pdf)