Medieval battlefields in england7/6/2023 ![]() Equally, an apparent lack of material culture from the late 14 th century cannot be linked to known national trends in population decline, resulting from the disasters of that century. The character of the landscape and its exploitation indicates that much of the region could not have supported a dense population (Newman 1996), but we cannot be certain that a lack of evidence for material culture, especially at the beginning of the period, is indicative of this. The nature, size and fluctuations of the region’s medieval population are still a matter of debate. Though towns were small, there is no evidence to suggest that there were notably fewer towns in the region than elsewhere. Unfortunately, such objects only rarely survive. Leather, horn and wood probably took the place of pottery and perhaps metal vessels, for example. This does not mean, however, that the population of the North West was impoverished materially. The towns were smaller than average, and there is likely to have been less incentive to establish the kinds of manufacturing, businesses and trade that brought in goods which provide the evidence for material culture on most excavations of medieval settlements. It was generally a region of sparse population, dispersed across the countryside in isolated farms and small hamlets, and characterised by poor quality agricultural land. ![]() The North West is an area where relative few archaeological investigations have been carried out, and is consequently viewed as an area with a lack of material culture in the medieval period. With contributions by David Cranstone, Andrew Davison, Julie Edwards, Andrew Fielding, Nigel Neil, Rachel Newman, North West Medieval Pottery Research Group, Sue Stallibrass and John Trippier Introduction ![]()
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