Paul C. Buckland

• PhD
• Independent Researcher

Excavations on the northern defences of the Roman fort in Doncaster

An altar to Mars dedicated by a soldier of legio XI Claudia is shown to have been removed from the fabric of Marton church during restoration work and, along with much of the other stone for the Romanesque tower, nave and chancel probably derived from the Roman small town of Segelocum , Littleborough on Trent. The name of the dedicator, G. IVLIVS A...

Local and regional museums often contain important collections of natural history specimens, either donated by local collectors or built up over many years of collecting by museum staff in the days when curatorial staff had skills in particular fields. This short paper and associated database details the Coleoptera collection in Doncaster Museum, a...

The coprophagous beetle fauna of Val de San Román, León, across three different habitats (grassland, conifer plantation, and an oak patch) was sampled using dung-baited pitfall traps. The dung fauna of Val de San Román is typical of a recent Mediterranean fauna, being dominated by Aphodiinae and Onthophagus species. Forty-three species were collect...

Excavations close to the Anglo-Saxon church at Conisbrough, South Yorkshire, UK, revealed a plank-walled construction dated by dendrochronology to the late sixth or early seventh century. It is suggested that this formed part of a stock pond for fish, associated with an elite residence to which a partly surviving Anglo-Saxon church incorporating No...

Late glacial stratigraphy at Barmston on the coast of East Yorkshire, England indicates deposition in small discrete basins over LGM Skipsea Till beginning with laminated clay-silt deposition whilst ice was still present, if largely buried beneath sediments. Subsequent melt-out created several small basins. Organic sediments in one of these, expose...

A World bibliography of papers including Quaternary, including archaeological, insect identifications.

The construction of a dual carriageway through the medieval churchyard and other redevelopment on the site of the Roman fort in Doncaster during the 1960s and early 70s was addressed by limited excavation and a number of watching briefs. These defined a late Roman enclosure of approximately two hectares surrounded by a 2 m thick wall which replaced...

Of the 24 Greenland interstadials in the Last Glacial-interglacial cycle (LGIC) only five are conventionally recognised in Britain. This paper aims to improve understanding of the LGIC in Britain from a site at Arclid, Cheshire. Sediments were characterised and luminescence used to establish a chronology. This found that the Chelford Sand Formation...

Statistical comparison of two vessel counts from Roman pottery kilns near Doncaster

Final report on excavations on Roman pottery kiln sites at Cantley, S Yorks.

Separation of females of two very similar species of the Carabid genus Agonum.

Inkle Moor adjoins Thorne Moors NNR to the west. The report lists identifications of invertebrates made during a survey in 2013.

Recent global changes have triggered a biodiversity crisis. However, climate fluctuations have always influenced biodiversity and humans have affected species distributions since prehistoric times. Conservation palaeobiology is a developing field that aims to understand the long-term dynamics of such interactions by studying the geo-historical reco...

In the absence of any published substantial Late Roman groups from Doncaster or the surrounding region, it was decided to make the sequence from the 'dark earth' on Site DS available with an extended commentary. Essentially the sequence extends downwards from 1.

Draft copy for comment. Pottery report also available

The Roman sites in Edlington Wood, three miles west-southwest of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, first came to wider notice as a result of finds by the woodman in the 1930s and the material was of sufficient interest for Philip Corder to use it as the basis for a paper in a festschrift to O. G. S. Crawford. Most of these finds and later material were d...

Originally published in 1991 (Buckland & Coope, 1991), this is the most comprehensive bibliography of articles and books on Quaternary fossil insects and their use in palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology and environmental archaeology available on the planet. Updates are periodically posted here, at www.bugscep.com, and on other open resources.

While there is extensive evidence for the Late Devensian, less is known about Early and Middle Devensian (approx. 110-30 ka) climates and environments in the UK. The Greenland ice-core record suggests the UK should have endured multiple changes, but the terrestrial palaeo-record lacks sufficient detail for confirmation from sites in the British Isl...

Write up of excavations in Doncaster, NE of the parish church, in 1967

Prehistoric field systems sometimes encompass excavated, pit‐like features which are difficult to classify due to the complex stratigraphies resulting from reuse, infilling and collapse. They are frequently classified as wells and watering holes, but other potential uses for excavated depressions are rarely cited. We argue the need for environmenta...

Comment on the state British Universities intended for relevant journal

Three hundred and three Roman coins were recovered in the course of the excavations described in this Volume. Or these fourteen were from two hoards; one of seven siliquae from Site DA, the other of seven late-second-to early-third-century copper-alloy issues from Site DC. These are described and assessed in their respective site reports and are no...

The lack of funding for the research on the Doncaster Roman fort excavations means that section will be written when PCB can find the time between other work. In addition some sections written many years ago will be successively revised and made available on this site. The introduction, last revised ten years ago is appended.

The 1966-7 rescue excavation in St George Gate, Doncaster, provided the first full section across the later Roman enclosure ('fort') wall. An underlying pit, which later research search indicates was associated with a larger fort provided a pottery and small find assemblage of Flavian date. A coin of AD71 provided a terminus post quem for the group...

Palaeoecological investigations of a rapidly eroding coastal midden and an adjacent peat bog on the island of Kangeq in southwest Greenland have provided new information on environmental change and human impact associated with Thule Inuit occupation. Palynological and palaeoentomological datasets have been produced through the 14th to the 17th cent...

Quaternary geology of Lindholme in the middle of Hatfield Moors, South Yorkshire, and adjacent areas.

Although there are several well preserved Viking boat burials from Norway, until recently palaeoecological research on their context has often been limited. Research on fossil insect remains in particular can provide valuable forensic information even in the absence of an actual body. Here we present archaeoentomological information from a boat bur...

A possible scenario. (DOCX)

Draft of the Roman small finds report

Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire is often considered a well-preserved ancient landscape, subsequently having survived by way of centuries of management as a hunting preserve. Archaeological evidence suggests otherwise, with an enclosed landscape beginning in the pre-Roman Iron Age and continuing through the Roman period. Due to the nature of the...

The Neolithic and the spread of agriculture saw several introductions of insect species associated with the environments and activities of the first farmers. Fossil insect research from the Neolithic lake settlement of Dispilio in Macedonia, northern Greece, provides evidence for the early European introduction of a flightless weevil, the granary w...

In 1992 two Middle Neolithic adult skeletons were excavated by South Yorkshire Archaeological Services from beneath a rock overhang at Scabba Wood (SE527019), near Sprotbrough, within one of the valleys north of the Don Gorge. In 1994, the Yorkshire Archaeological Society’s Doncaster branch carried out a geophysical survey of a rectangular enclosur...

An updated compilation of all published papers on Quaternary insect fossils, including Chironomidae and archaeological ones.

The impact of insect species directly associated with man-made habitats and human dispersal has been, and remains globally significant. Their early expansion from their original niches into Europe is intrinsically related to discussions of climate change, origins of domesticated plants and animals, the spread of agriculture and infectious diseases....

Farm outbuildings on the edge of Hatfield Moors, since demolished, showed construction of alternating bands of one or two header courses of handmade bricks separating three to four courses of rounded cobbles of varying sizes. The method of construction, utilising boulders and cobbles cleared from fields, was once widely used in the region and the s...

Excavation of the latest surviving structures of the villa at Batten Hanger in West Sussex indicates that a large aisled building was demolished in the late fourth or fifth century and replaced by a large hall 31.6 m long by 11.5 m wide, orientated approximately east–west. The survival of pad stones shows this space to have been divided into seven...

The limits of the glacier that occupied the southwest part of the southern Vale of York at the Last Glacial Maximum are defined in relation to recent temporary exposures at Lindholme and previous regional mapping by Geoff Gaunt. Erratic content of associated diamicts indicates sources in the Yorkshire Dales, over Stainmore and along the Permo-...

One of the last papers which Alan was working on when he died was a short note on a flint artefact from the surface of a gravel scrape at Lindholme in South Yorkshire. This was found during fieldwork by Robert Friend, a postgraduate student in Geography at the University of Edinburgh, working on the limits of the last glaciation in the Vale of York...

Animal dung is evaluated here as a tool to reconstruct recent societal and environmental changes. Studies completed on the macro- and micro-contents from dung deposited in a mountain cave in Catalonia during the 1970–1980s, preceding the socio-economic changes in the area, was supplemented by the testimony of the last shepherd alive in the area. Th...

Updated version of bibliography to 20.12.16

During the Last Glacial Maximum, the Vale of York and North Sea lobes of the British and Irish Ice Sheet extended to within 10km of each other, impounding a series of pro-glacial lakes. Such an interplay of ice lobes provides a useful analogue for elsewhere in the North Sea basin. This paper focusses on reconstructing the Vale of York and North Sea...

The use of a wide range of narcotic drugs in antiquity has been widely documented, although archaeologists have sometimes been too credulous of apparently scientific data, and have failed to appreciate the post-excavation histories of artefacts, including mummies. This paper examines the discovery of tobacco in the mummy of Rameses II, provides an...

Results from AMS dating applied to insect chitin from a variety of contexts and different preservation conditions and retrieval methods are presented. Secure contexts, which include other dated organic material from different geographic locations ranging from Egypt to Greenland and different chronological periods, from Lateglacial to Medieval, have...

Re-produced by kind permission of Antenna, the magazine of the Royal Entomological Society. Several recent papers in a range of entomological and biogeographical journals (e.g. Abellán et al. 2010; Foster & Carr 2008) have drawn attention to the importance of the Quaternary insect fossil record, both in terms of species distribution and conservati...

Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet, and as suchare present in a wider variety of habitats than most other organism groups.This diversity, in addition to a long evolutionary ...

The Early Iron Age enclosures and associated sites on Sutton Common on the western edge of the Humberhead Levels contain an exceptional variety of archaeological data of importance not only to the region but for the study of later prehistory in the British Isles. Few other later prehistoric British sites outside the East Anglian fens and the Somers...

Attributing a season and a date to the volcanic eruption of Santorini in the Aegean has become possible by using preserved remains of the bean weevil, Bruchus rufipes, pests of pulses, from the storage jars of the West House, in the Bronze Age settlement at Akrotiri. We have applied an improved pre-treatment methodology for dating the charred insec...

Excavations close to the Anglo-Saxon church at Conisbrough, South Yorkshire, UK, revealed a plank-walled construction dated by dendrochronology to the late sixth or early seventh century. It is suggested that this formed part of a stock pond for fish, associated with an elite residence to which a partly surviving Anglo-Saxon church incorporating No...

Palaeoecological research based on insect remains from the vicinity of a Norse farm at Tasiusaq in southwest Greenland provides information on the area surrounding the farm and new information on extirpations attributed to human impact. Anthropochorous species (spread by people) from the farm faunas are lacking in the assemblages, and the natural f...

Palaeoecological research based on insect remains from the vicinity of a Norse farm at Tasiusaq in southwest Greenland provides information on the area surrounding the farm and new information on extirpations attributed to human impact. Anthropochorous species (spread by people) from the farm faunas are lacking in the assemblages, and the natural f...

Initial European, Norse, settlement in south-west Greenland lasted from the late tenth to the fifteenth century, with an economy largely based on secondary products from sheep, goats and cattle, supplemented by caribou and marine mammal hunting. Sustainable subsistence farming required acquisition of sufficient fodder, principally hay, to feed stal...

Southwest Greenland was settled, largely from Iceland, at the end of the tenth century. Agriculture, based upon secondary products from domestic animals, lasted until the fifteenth century when the last farms were finally abandoned. From the twelfth century, the inhabitants had their own bishop and cathedral at Gar冒ar in the more southerly Eastern...

An insect fauna associated with the medieval burial of Archbishop Greenfield, interred in December 1315 in a lead coffin within a stone sarcophagus beneath the floor of York Minster, is examined and compared with the limited entomological data from other medieval burials. The implications of the archaeoentomological data are discussed. The fauna is...

Initial European, Norse, settlement in southwest Greenland lasted from the late tenth to the fifteenth century, with an economy largely based on secondary products from sheep, goats and cattle, supplemented by caribou and marine mammal hunting. Sustainable subsistence farming required acquisition of sufficient fodder, principally hay, to feed stall...

Environmental Archaeology. Approaches, Techniques and Applications. By WilkinsonKeith and StevensChris. 250mm. Pp 320, ills. Stroud: Tempus, 2003. ISBN 0752419315. £25. - Volume 84 - P C Buckland

Alluvial Archaeology in Britain. Edited by NeedhamStuart P. and MacklinMark. 300mm. Pp. xiii + 277, ills. Oxford: Oxbow Books, Oxbow Monograph, 27, 1992. ISBN 0-946897-52-2. £35.00. - Volume 78 - P. C. Buckland

Star Carr in Context. By MellarsPaul and DarkPetra. 290mm. Pp xiii + 250, ills. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs, 1998. ISBN 0-9519420-4-2. £40.00. - Volume 80 Issue 1 - P C Buckland

Bateman, M. D., Buckland, P. C., Whyte, M. A., Ashurst, R. A., Boulter, C. & Panagiotakopulu, E. 2011: Re-evaluation of the Last Glacial Maximum typesite at Dimlington, UK. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2011.00204.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Recent erosion has allowed re-examination of the stratigraphy and sampling for both optically stimulated luminescence d...

The city of Akhetaten, modern day Amarna, was founded by the monotheist pharoah Akhenaten as his new capital ca. 1353 BC, and abandoned within about 25 years. Much of the site has been excavated over the past century and few deposits remain undisturbed. In one house, however, that of the king's chief charioteer, Ranefer, rebuilding had sealed occup...

Environmental change has a human dimension, and has had so for at least the last 10 000 years. The prehistoric impact of people on the Arctic landscape has occasionally left visible traces, such as house and field structures. More often than not, however, the only evidence available is at the microscopic or geochemical level, such as fossil insect...

The city of Akhetaten, modern day Amarna, was founded by the monotheist pharoah Akhenaten as his new capital ca. 1353 BC, and abandoned within about 25 years. Much of the site has been excavated over the past century and few deposits remain undisturbed. In one house, however, that of the king's chief charioteer, Ranefer, rebuilding had sealed occup...

Tephra-dated, high-resolution pollen profiles from Ketilsstaðir, southern Iceland, indicate a largely unwooded pre-settlement environment, a probable consequence of the exposed coastal location. The degree of change associated with the Norse landnám is more limited than in many Icelandic pollen diagrams. There are three main periods of change in th...