Understanding the Archaeological Evidence of Flooding and Flood Risk Management for Medieval and Post-Medieval England

Flooding has long shaped human lives and landscapes – and those risks and challenges are now increasing at a global scale under all climate change scenarios. Yet archaeological evidence for past flood events and risk management remains under recognized and under utilized. This paper offers the first synthesis of material traces of past flooding and flood mitigation in medieval and post-medieval England (ca. 1200–1700 CE). Drawing on publications, development-led archaeological reports, Historic Environment Records, and national datasets, we identify and analyze three major categories of evidence – flood and storm deposits, evidence of post flood recovery efforts, as well as flood management infrastructure. Bringing these categories of evidence together provides a rare deep-time perspective on flood risk management, revealing how communities adapted to, resisted, and sometimes reshaped watery landscapes over millennia. In doing so, our overarching goal is to identify archaeological evidence from the human-environmental past that can inform contemporary flood risk management in England and assist present-day attempts to promote climate resilience in flood prone areas. Our hope is that this paper will promote better documentation and interpretation of the "flood record" in archaeology, and wider use of the available datasets and information by contemporary risk management authorities, policymakers, and national governments.