Introduction
We were invited to evaluate the geoarchaeology of a site at Newport Street, Worcester, to help the excavating archaeologists, both in understanding the origins of the deposits and in assessing the archaeological potential of the site.
Background
The bedrock of the area was known to be Triassic Keuper Marl, and we found the soils to be typical brown alluvial soils. The site lies in an area of flat land to the east of the River Severn within an urbanised area of Worcester about to undergo redevelopment.
A number of trenches had been dug across the site, and it was in these that we were able to examine deposits. Three cores were also taken at a later date to provide samples for analysis.
Findings
From examining the cores, we found the bedrock to be overlain by banded sands and gravels of the late Devensian deposited in a fluvioglacial environment, above this we found sands deposited in a high energy river environment, which were then replaced by alluvial silts and clays from a much less energetic river. In these alluvial deposits large woody roots became finer further up, before the deposits changed to very mixed archaeological deposits which resembled pit fills and dumped material.
Conclusions
From our investigations, we were able to tell the client that the sequence of deposits were natural fluvioglacial and alluvial sediments overlain by archaeological material. There was little organic material in the alluvium, so the potential for palaeoenvironmental analysis seemed poor. There was good preservation of organic material in the archaeological deposits, but due to the amount of mixing, any evidence found may be compromised, and apart from that, little more could be learnt from further geoarchaeological analysis.