The condition of Holocene alluvial archaeology in the UK: progress, constraints and opportunities

This paper provides both a retrospective and prospective review of developments that have taken place in UK alluvial archaeology over the past 10 years. It demonstrates that there has been considerable progress in UK Holocene alluvial archaeological research through a combination of detailed site and catchment specific field studies, laboratory analysis and modelling, which now provide the foundations to link UK river valley and coastal archaeological records in a way that would not have been conceived perhaps even 5 years ago. The challenge, however, is to develop from these individual studies, a genuinely inter-disciplinary programme, that turns data into information, and which provides the best possible scientific guidance for informed management of the archaeological resource.