York Historic Environment Record

An auger survey was undertaken on land at Moor Lane, York, as part of a programme of evaluation in connection with the promotion of the site for residential-led development. The survey consisted of 22 hand driven augers at pre-selected locations, following trial trenching which had identified an organic deposit of presumed Windermere Interstadial date sealed beneath wind-blown sand. The aim of the survey was to identify the extent of the organic deposit and to undertake dating and palaeoenvironmental assessment of previously sampled material. The coring demonstrated that organic horizons were extremely localised and limited in extent. The previously recovered material was dated to 13,281–13,102 cal BP, confirming its late glacial date; plant macrofossils were identified within it. A small area of peat relating to the Holocene Askham Bog sequence was also identified at one auger location. The peat sequences detected are not considered to be of particular archaeological or palaeoenvironmental interest in comparison to other previously studied sequences in the locality and have limited potential to provide further information about climatic conditions at the end of the Windermere Interstadial.