4Archaeological models of past human occupation of the landscape build upon the understanding of the 5 natural palaeo-environment. This cognitive process relies on the study of the sediment units at a level 6 of spatial resolution that might not be achieved with available maps. This paper presents a new

Excavations at Eaglestone Flat, on the gritstone eastern uplands of the Peak District, have revealed a Bronze Age cremation cemetery associated with a number of contemporaneous stone structures built for ritual and agricultural purposes. Some of the burials were within urns, mostly cordoned. Others were simply placed in pits whilst still hot. A minority were deposited in direct association with small cairns, either placed under or within them. The majority were on open ground near the stone features and adjacent to the upslope edge of a prehistoric field. Most of the stone structures are clearance features associated with the preparation and cultivation of the land close by over an extended period. They are found in a complex palimpsest, which includes structures of unusual design, such as retained rectangular platforms, and discontinuous walls that were only ever i-z courses high and probably surmounted by low banks. A series of radiocarbon results adds to knowledge of the date at which Peak District cairnftelds and field systems were built. Environmental data allows vegetational sequences to be reconstructed.

SUMMARY This paper elucidates the late Pleistocene and early Flandrian environmental history of the Lower Idle Valley through sedimentological, palaeobiological and radiometric dating studies of fluvial and aeolian deposits. The lower part of the sequence comprises braided river sands and gravels with silty peats infilling a scour hollow in their upper surface. Coleopteran and palynological analyses of the organic sediments indicate deposition in a slow moving or static water body with fringing reeds, sedges and substantial beds of wet moss. Away from the water, the vegetation was open and probably of grassland with few trees. Radiocarbon dating indicates accumulation of organic material started towards the end of the Dimlington Stadial, c. 13,500 cal bp. A cryoturbated, podsolized sandy clay with plant matter was developed on the sands and gravels and is akin to an ‘Arctic Structure Soil’. The sandy clay parent material on which the soil was developed is suggested to have originated in a lacustrine environment, tentatively linked to the Lake Humber complex. The palaeosol is buried, in turn, beneath coversands, the uppermost part of which is reworked. Thermoluminescence (TL) age determinations show that the coversands started to accumulate around 13,700 bp, probably in response to climatic deterioration prior to the Loch Lomond Stadial. Reworking began around 8,500 years ago.

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