A new academic paper, “The Midlands of England: Economic Backwater or an Agricultural Powerhouse?” offers the results of a…

“palaeo-environmental investigation from Aqualate Mere near Newport, Staffordshire [6 miles west of Stafford,] undertaken on the sediment record [found there …] from the later prehistoric period onwards. The results challenge the idea this region was a backwater, as there is near-continuous agricultural activity around the mere from the Late Bronze Age through to modern times.”