Ben Pear

Biographic Data

ID1345216
NAMEBen Pear
GIVEN NAMESBen
FAMILY NAMEPear
SIGNATUREBEN PEAR
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Southampton
ORCID0000-0002-2124-2514
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS9
TOTAL CITATIONS13
WORKS AS AUTHOR9
WORKS AS EDITOR0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2020
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX2

  • Corfe Before, During and After the Castle

    Open AccessBen Pear, Catherine Langdon et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Archaeology2026

    Multi-analytical research on the western edge of Corfe Castle, Dorset, enabled a reconstruction of the late Holocene landscape and land use from the Early Bronze Age to the present day. Initially, the small tributary of the Corfe River had a low sedimentation rate with scrub-woodland margins, but from the early historic period, herbaceous diversity increased alongside a decrease in woodland. From the mid-8th century CE, acceleration of sedimentat…

  • A multi-period riverine landscape narrative of the Ure Valley north of the Roman town of Aldborough ( Isurium Brigantum )

    Open AccessC French, Ben Pear et al.ARTICLEArchaeological Journal2026

    Geoarchaeological survey and palaeoenvironmental analyses were conducted in the floodplain of the river Ure to the north of the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough, North Yorkshire) as part of a complementary campaign of geophysical survey and excavations (2018–2024). This involved an intensive coring survey to understand the development of the valley and the environmental context of the settlement. A large palaeochannel was discovered so…

  • The Soil Erosion Paradox Re‐Examined

    Open AccessBen Pear, Emily Forster et al.ARTICLEGeoarchaeology2026References: 85

    Modern studies show that soil erosion results in a loss of ecosystem function, particularly fertility, and is a cause of declining agricultural yields. However, despite the well‐attested high rates of soil erosion across Roman and medieval Europe there appears to have been little or no soil‐associated decline in agricultural production—the soil erosion paradox. Small low‐slope erodible lowland catchments offer the opportunity to examine this ques…

  • Aldborough and the metals economy of northern England, c . AD 345–1700

    Open AccessC P Loveluck, Martin Millett et al.ARTICLEAntiquity2025References: 28

    Increasing interdisciplinary analysis of geoarchaeological records, including sediment and ice cores, permits finer-scale contextual interpretation of the history of anthropogenic environmental impacts. In an interdisciplinary approach to economic history, the authors examine metal pollutants in a sediment core from the Roman metal-producing centre of Aldborough, North Yorkshire, combining this record with textual and archaeological evidence from…

  • The Geoarchaeology of Agricultural Terraces in Europe

    Open AccessAntony Brown, Ben Pear et al.ARTICLEGeoarchaeology2025Cited by: 1References: 4

    Although the primary purpose of agricultural terracing can be assumed to be food production, it has been suggested that a secondary purpose was the control of soil erosion. In this paper, we explore this thesis with multi‐proxy data from the TerrACE project, which studied 20 sites in a latitudinal transect across Europe. These sites show that terrace construction was often related to previous slope instability or erosion and that terracing mainta…

  • Lynchet-Type Terraces, Loess, and Agricultural Resilience on Chalk Landscapes in the UK and Belgium

    Open AccessBen Pear, Andreas Lang et al.ARTICLEEuropean Journal of Archaeology2024Cited by: 2References: 3

    Lynchets, often the defining component of historic agricultural landscapes in northern Europe, are generally associated with soft-limestone geologies and are particularly well developed on loess-mantled landscapes. To understand their formation and chronology, the authors present their geoarchaeological analyses of lynchet soils and loess deposits at Blick Mead and Charlton Forest in southern England, and Sint Martens-Voeren in Belgium. The lynch…

  • Rapid laminated clastic alluviation associated with increased Little Ice Age flooding co-driven by climate variability and historic land-use in the middle Severn catchment, UK

    Open AccessBen Pear, Antony Brown et al.ARTICLEThe Holocene2023Cited by: 2References: 9

    The analysis of exceptionally well-preserved visible clastic laminations in deep alluvial sediments at Kempsey, Worcestershire (UK), allows a new high-resolution analysis of late-Holocene flood-history in the largest UK catchment, as well as local human response. At the sample site over 4.5 m of sandy-silt overbank-alluvium accumulated on the floodplain and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of the upper 2.25 m demonstrates accretion …

  • Early to Middle Bronze Age agricultural terraces in north-east England

    Open AccessAntony G Brown, Antony Brown et al.ARTICLEAntiquity2023Cited by: 1References: 33

    Terracing is found widely in the Mediterranean and in other hilly and mountainous regions of the world. Yet while archaeological attention to these 'mundane' landscape features has grown, they remain understudied, particularly in Northern Europe. Here, the authors present a multidisciplinary study of terraces in the Breamish Valley, Northumberland. The results date their construction to the Early to Middle Bronze Age, when they were built by cutt…

  • Early Medieval Place-Names and Riverine Flood Histories

    Open AccessBen Pear, Antony Brown et al.ARTICLEEuropean Journal of Archaeology2020Cited by: 7

    Environmental information from place-names has largely been overlooked by geoarchaeologists and fluvial geomorphologists in analyses of the depositional histories of rivers and floodplains. Here, new flood chronologies for the rivers Teme, Severn, and Wye are presented, modelled from stable river sections excavated at Broadwas, Buildwas, and Rotherwas. These are connected by the Old English term * wæsse , interpreted as ‘land by a meandering rive…