50 Finds From Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire

Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme

Alastair Willis

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781445658544
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: Social Sciences

The counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are an area of transition between the north-west and the south-east, highland and lowland, pasture and arable, rural and urban. These geographical divides shaped ancient tribal boundaries and continued to act as a border after the Roman conquest of southern Britain. The Trent and its tributaries were important trade routes linking the area with other parts of Britain and the wider world. Many settlements, including the important towns of Nottingham, Newark and Derby, sprang up on their banks during the Roman and medieval periods. Consequently, the finds from the area are diverse and reflect influences from different parts of the country and beyond. The objects in this book were found by members of the public and have been recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme. They provide us with an insight into the lives of our ancestors, the people who lived and worked in these two counties, the people who did not make it into the history books. The objects span a period of at least 180,000 years and represent the whole spectrum of society, from the hand axe of a hunter-gatherer to the neck torc of an Iron Age chieftain to a token halfpenny of a seventeenth-century coal miner.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• The Palaeolithic Period (around 800,000–10,000 BC)
• The Mesolithic Period (around 10,000–4,000 BC)
• The Neolithic Period (around 4,000–2,350 BC)
• The Bronze Age (around 2,350–800 BC)
• The Iron Age (around 800 BC–AD 43)
• The Roman Period (AD 43–402)
• The Early Medieval Period (AD 402–1066)
• The Medieval Period (AD 1066–1540)
• The Post-Medieval Period (AD 1540–1900)
• Conclusion
• Further Reading
• The Portable Antiquities Scheme
• About the Author