Some brilliant answers and it's nice to see that many people are thinking of the bigger picture when it comes to their stes.
Well first my apologies for the slightly arrogant nature of the question but I hoped to attract some newer members but hopefully just reading the answers may have helped kick start their imagination to see their solitary button in context of their other finds or even the lack of.
As said, there are some great answers, each of which could be equally valid on certain sites and yes it was slightly unfair as I have personal knowledge of my land so have an advantage but I think all answers have pointed out the relevant information that the finds and lack of offer.
We can see that our site has been "used" since 250 BC though the scant traces probably indicate that we are "close too" and not on a habitation site
Whether it has been in continual use through to our next 1st century finds is beyond the scope of a metal detector and this is where recording is so important as any future planning for the land will have a heads up on what may lie underneath.
We can be pretty confident that our site was in use right through the Roman period as the finds from apparently disjointed centuries are in keeping with Western Britain, unless your in large urban areas or those used by the military.
We now hit that mysterious period which is now unfashionably called the Dark Ages and while the name came about because of recorded information it could have been so called by it's lack of finds, once again more in the west than the east. One Saxon coin found in Wales is equal to the Staffordshire hoard as far as historical relevance is concerned.
All answers pertaining to this period could be equally viable and without a time machine or major excavation we simply can't tell from detecting alone but we do know that some degree of community must have existed by the 9th century to warrant the building of a church but Herbie was spot on here with the "Social and urban decline"
This dearth of finds continues right through to the 14th century with the finding of our first thimble, a similar find represents the next 3 centuries and this is our clue to land use.
As Neil points out the dreaded sheep have taken over, most of us will grimace remembering having to learn about the inclosures acts at school, these being in the 18th and 19th centuries but few realise these were only some of the acts that had started as far back as 1235 with a number of subsequent rulings and repeals covering the intervening centuries.
Thimbles where used obviously for sewing (Dale I'd not heard about the harvest idea?) and it's generally thought that "wool sacks" are the items being sewn.
As stated one shepherd could be the only human on a thousand acres of grazing land compared to 8 people a year it took to sow and harvest every acre of arable and so potential losses are that much less, plus you don't muck spread pasture land? and this brings us to the agricultural revolution!
Dale mentions the spreading of human waist which is how the majority of buttons and pottery get into the soil and probably a fare few coins from all periods have found their way into the ground by the same route (the coin finds from both Roman sewage systems and medieval garderobes show that coin losses were quite common, which in my mind is strange as they they didn't have pockets?)
Also the ox shoe does reinforce the theory of ploughing of the land as does the coins, witnessing the increased level of human activity.
If you find an area that is devoid of finds, as Carling says "Woodland" is the prime suspect with much of medieval woodland being used for not only timber and fuel but also for pig rearing and so was a valuable part of many rural communities.
The proximity of your site to large urban areas does change all the rules as land is given over more to arable because of a ready market for the produce. In the more rural areas arable crops would have been for more local consumption due to the inability of getting these too market while still relatively fresh, cows, geese, sheep etc can walk to market (drovers tracks) carrots can't
The East had more large urban areas and so has more arable land to feed them.
One other point that's worth noting is, Nero has highlighted the lack of a Norman "influence", the influence word is a dangerous one to rely on as once again there is a east-wast split outside of large urban areas, influence can take a long time to travel, far back as the bronze age the early, middle and late phases differ by as much as 200 years between east and west and unless there is direct Saxon or Norman occupancy the influence never quite makes it.
One great saying to remember when trying to put together a picture of your land is "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
