Series: University of York unpublished report series

The fieldwork reported here was undertaken as part of the wider University of York 'Tents to Towns' project, with funding from the British Academy and Society of Antiquaries of London. The project aims to uncover new evidence for the impact of the Vikings on England, specifically with respect to the emergence of towns and industry. It focusses on Torksey, Lincolnshire, where the Viking 'Great Army' spent the winter of AD 872-3, and where in a previous project we identified the site of a camp of c. 55ha to the north of the village, and extensive evidence for trade and manufacture. The fieldwork reported here targeted fields south of the modern village of Torksey, where 9th-/10th-century pottery kilns and burials have been identified, as well as the only pre-Viking occupation evidence known from Torksey. This presented a unique opportunity to trace the impact of the Army as it made the transition from overwintering to permanent settlement, and to investigate the contribution of the Army and its followers to the origins and growth of one of the most important pottery industries in later Anglo-Saxon England.

Geophysical and earthwork survey of the Roman fort and vicus at Malton.

A metal-detector survey was undertaken of land south of Sand Lane, Torksey, as part of the wider University of York 'Tents to Towns' project. Very little archaeological investigation has been undertaken in this part of the parish of Torksey and it was hoped that the survey would (a) further illuminate the extent of the medieval town, and (b) provide a range of dated artefacts which might be linked with the known archaeology further west and north-west in the village.