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• ADS Collection: 1649
• DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1022586
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Introduction

Recent petrographic studies of later prehistoric pottery distributed widely over the English East Midlands have revealed a highly unusual and distinctive fabric characterised by angular granitoid inclusions that it has been suggested may derive from the Mountsorrel granodiorite: an outcrop of igneous rock located on the eastern flank of Charnwood Forest, between Leicester and Loughborough. Such inter-regional exchange has rarely been demonstrated convincingly in the East Midlands, due in large part to the comparatively rare occurrence in prehistoric pottery from the region of diagnostic inclusions that can be tightly provenanced, and the discoveries are potentially of considerable significance.

This project was funded by Historic England (Project No. 5631) and aimed to test by means of additional petrographic study and electron microprobe analysis the model of ceramic production and distribution that has been proposed on the basis of thin section analysis and to provenance more closely potential raw material sources. The project brought together specialists in prehistoric pottery from the East Midlands (David Knight^[1] and Patrick Marsden^[2]), Charnwood geology (John Carney^[3]) and petrographic and chemical analyses of pottery (John Carney, Edward Faber^[4] and Julian Henderson^[5]) and was managed on behalf of the project team by David Knight. Thanks are extended to Historic England for the provision of funding and to our Project Assurance Officers Paddy O’Hara, Helen Keeley and latterly Jenni Butterworth for their help and advice during the course of this project. We are grateful also to Rachel Atherton, Patrick Clay, Amanda Forster, Ann Inscker and Richard Pollard for facilitating access to the pottery examined during this project and for permitting the extraction of sherds for petrographic and microprobe analysis. Carol Allen, Matt Beamish, Nick Cooper, Neil Finn, Graeme Guilbert, Annette Hancocks, Robert Ixer, Elaine Morris, Patrick Quinn, John Thomas, the late Alan Vince, Ian Whitbread, David Williams and Ann Woodward provided valuable information and advice relating to the pottery analysed during this project and helpful feedback on our work. Thanks are due also to Jane Evans of the British Geological Survey for her advice on the potential of isotope analysis and to Jonathan Last, Michael Russell, Harriet White and Jim Williams of Historic England for their valuable comments on a draft of the archive report that may be downloaded from this website.

^{[1] York Archaeological Trust}

^{[2] University of Leicester Archaeological Services}

^{[3] British Geological Survey}

^{[4] Department of Classics and Archaeology, University of Nottingham; School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences, University of Bradford}

^{[5] Department of Classics and Archaeology, University of Nottingham}