Lillie M | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

For the past thirty years or so, wetlands have been at the forefront of developments in understanding past cultural activity and associated landscapes. The exceptional preservation afforded by waterlogged sites are paralleled only by those of comparable extremes: frozen and arid contexts. Wetland sites then, can provide a wealth of information that 'dryland' sites seldom can. But such preservation is not limited to organic deposits, but also records the environmental conditions at the time, thereby allowing for detailed reconstruction of the associated environment and landscape. Between 1992 and 2000, a project based at the University of Hull undertook the systematic investigation of over half a million hectares of land located primarily in the catchment of the Humber Basin. In order to mark the successful completion of this, the Humber Wetlands Project, the editors invited colleagues from all over the world to contribute a series of chapters to this book. The aim was to outline the current state of wetland cultural and palaeoenvironmental knowledge, and to provide multidisciplinary insights into the methodological approaches and theoretical aspects of this important area of study.