Having looked at the national trends in both the PAS and EMC components of the VASLE 'National dataset', it is now time to look at regional variations in the national picture. Once again, England will be considered in terms of six regions. These are generally comparable but, broadly speaking, the further west and north the more variation there is. In northern England, stycas affect the graph greatly, and there are very few later finds recorded in the EMC. In western regions, the generally low levels of monetisation in the 8th and 9th centuries are shown by the higher proportions of finds of Late Saxon date. Wales has not been included as a separate section as overall it has a very sparse distribution of coins. There is a slight concentration of finds in South Wales (Cardiff to Bridgend) as seen with all data, but there are virtually no finds in Pembrokeshire or the Gower Peninsula. There are only a few finds in North Wales dotted along the north coast.
Each regional section follows a common format. First the early medieval landscape is introduced, and an initial section summarises what is known about settlement patterns from archaeological and historical evidence. The main section then examines the patterns of early medieval portable antiquities. An interactive map allows the reader to overlay the PAS and EMC datasets against topography and constraints base maps. A chart shows the regional PAS finds broken down by broad period divisions, to allow chronological comparison. Finally, two further charts illustrate the regional artefact and coinage 'fingerprints'. These can be compared against the national 'fingerprints' provided in Sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 to identify regional differences from the national pattern.
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URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue25/2/3.3.html
Last updated: Tues Apr 21 2009