ABSTRACT
The contribution of the Shapwick Project is that it has extended both the chronology of our environmental understanding in the wetland and the geography of prehistoric activity in the area. This chapter aims to identify the parts of the dryland landscape which would benefit from more detailed investigation and more sympathetic management. The boundaries between zones of flora and fauna, or 'ecotones', are thought to have been significant features in the landscape. The chapter argues that many mid18th-century field boundaries might have their origins in the later prehistoric period and this would imply that the new common field arrangement must have adapted a pre-existing framework rather than laying out the landscape afresh. Aerial photography and field survey had demonstrated that lowland Britain in the Romano-British period was a busy place and that early or middle Anglo-Saxon England could not have been a virgin landscape.
