The counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are an area of transition
between the north-west and the south-east, highland and lowland, pasture
and arable, rural and urban. These geographical divides shaped ancient
tribal boundaries and continued to act as a border after the Roman
conquest of southern Britain. The Trent and its tributaries were
important trade routes linking the area with other parts of Britain and
the wider world. Many settlements, including the important towns of
Nottingham, Newark and Derby, sprang up on their banks during the Roman
and medieval periods. Consequently, the finds from the area are diverse
and reflect influences from different parts of the country and beyond.
The objects in this book were found by members of the public and have
been recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme. They provide us with
an insight into the lives of our ancestors, the people who lived and
worked in these two counties, the people who did not make it into the
history books. The objects span a period of at least 180,000 years and
represent the whole spectrum of society, from the hand axe of a
hunter-gatherer to the neck torc of an Iron Age chieftain to a token
halfpenny of a seventeenth-century coal miner.