Early Co-axial Field Systems on the East Anglian Boulder Clays

Abstract

In some areas of Britain landscape reorganization in the post-Roman period has not destroyed earlier systems of land division, which have instead been preserved in modern arrangements. Topographic analysis of landscapes on the heavier soils of East Anglia reveals sometimes very extensive co-axial field systems of probable later prehistoric origin. Other such systems, however, are probably of later date. Co-axial planning may be not a continuous tradition of landscape organization, but rather a recurringly adopted solution to the problem of competing claims to large areas of open land.