‘Total Archaeology’ and Model Landscapes: Excavation of the Great Wilbraham Causewayed Enclosure, Cambridgeshire, 1975–76

Abstract

This paper presents the results of fieldwork and archive ‘excavation’ relating to the causewayed enclosure at Great Wilbraham near Cambridge. Initiated in 1975 by David Clarke and John Alexander, the project effectively ceased after one further season following Clarke's untimely death. Combining original data with new results from geophysical and environmental surveys, a reappraisal of the site and its landscape context is offered. ‘The archive provides a context in which to ask how the project might have developed had it not come to such an abrupt end. It also serves as a platform from which to review the assumptions that underpinned the formal approaches to landscape modelling that were so popular in the 1970s and the methodological principles which informed New Archaeology ‘in the field’.