ABSTRACT
The years 1965-85 saw an unprecedented number of excavations of water-powered sites in Britain. The methods of building earth dams have received insufficient archaeological attention in Britain, particularly as there is little documentary evidence. In Britain, many dams dated from the Middle Ages, and in areas of later expansion such as the Weald, the Pennines or the Cotswolds, construction had largely ceased before illustrated publications on civil engineering topics became common. Changes in the archaeological climate in Britain have reduced the number of opportunities for excavations of the kind that produced the evidence on which studies of medieval and later mills have come to rely. The need to place the water mill in its landscape context has led to surveys of entire valleys, in which available water supply is related to series of mills rather than to the individual site. In a wider context, there has been encouragement to study the mill as a component in early industrial landscapes.
