Carlisle Urban Archaeological Database. Method Statement

Carlisle City Council has initiated an urban archaeological strategy as a contribution to a
national programme of conserving and managing the archaeological resources of 35 of
England’s historic towns and cities. As part of this, the Council commissioned Oxford
Archaeology North (OA North) to undertake the preparation of an archaeological database
intended to form the foundations for an assessment of the state of Carlisle’s archaeological
resource. OA North began this work in March 2006 and the final database was completed and
supplied to Carlisle City Council in December 2007.
The aims of the project were to compile an archaeological database for Carlisle and this
entailed the examination of a range of archaeological, documentary and cartographic sources.
These were used in the compilation of a complete list of all recorded actions (‘Events’)
undertaken in Carlisle. In total, 1234 Events were defined, and mapped. These were used as
the raw data in the definition of areas of archaeological or historical interest (‘Monuments’),
of which 909 were defined. The project also produced a Deposit Model of the principal
horizons of the natural subsoils and the upper level of the Roman deposits.