Alistair Barclay – författare

The site at Whitecross Farm, including timber structures located on the edge of the eyot, and a substantial midden and occupation deposit has been securely radiocarbon-dated to the late Bronze Age. The late Bronze Age artefact assemblages are suggestive of a high-status site, with a range of domestic and ritual activities represented. The bank of the Grim's Ditch earthwork was found to have preserved evidence of earlier settlement, dating to the Neolithic and Bronze Age, and a sequence of cultivation, including ard marks and 'cord-rig' cultivation ridges. Pottery and radiocarbon analysis dated the earthwork to the end of the late Iron Age or the early Roman period. A multi-period settlement, consisting of pits, a waterhole, postholes, gullies and field systems, was identified at Bradford's Brook, Cholsey. The main periods represented are late Bronze Age and Romano-British, while a small quantity of Saxon pottery indicates limited Saxon activity. A large pit containing late Bronze Age pottery, a cattle skull, waterlogged wood and plant remains, a complete loomweight and flint flakes has been interpreted as a waterhole. A series of radiocarbon dates were obtained for deposits within this feature. All three sites are discussed individually as well as within their local, regional and national contexts. Chapter 7 provides an overall discussion of later Bronze Age themes that have arisen through the excavation and analysis of these sites.

Excavations at the Eton Rowing Course and along the Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton Flood Alleviation Channel revealed extensive evidence for occupation in an evolving landscape of floodplains and gravel terraces set amidst the shifting channels of the Thames.The most significant evidence was a series of early Neolithic midden deposits, preserved in hollows left by infilled palaeochannels. These deposits contained dense concentrations of pottery, worked flint, animal bone and other finds, and are put into context by other artefact scatters from the floodplain, pits on the gravel terrace and waterlogged environmental deposits from palaeochannels. Early Mesolithic lakeside occupation, later Mesolithic flint scatters along a former channel of the Thames, pits from the middle and late Neolithic and activity areas of the Beaker and Early Bronze Age, demonstrate longer term changes in patterns of occupation.The excavations also revealed early, middle and late Neolithic human remains in palaeochannels, middle Neolithic crouched inhumation burials and early Neolithic cremated remains. An oval barrow may have first been cut in the early Neolithic. Other ring ditches date from the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age; one contained a central cremation burial in a Collared Urn together with pyre material and the remains of a bier.

This next in the successful Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers series arises from the day conference held in November 2024. Following on from 2023’s Revisiting Grooved Ware volume, it aims to provide an up-to-date analysis and synthesis of Middle Neolithic (3600–2900 BC) pottery in Britain and Ireland that falls under the umbrella term of Impressed Ware. The pottery represents the final expression of Early Neolithic carinated bowls, which have evolved into highly decorated vessels using a variety of fibre, animal bone, and fingernail/tip impressions to form their distinctive and extensive decoration. The pottery is spread widely over Britain and Ireland with marked regionality as well as a contrasting degree of uniformity. This has never before been studied in detail so this book will provide the first wide overview of Impressed Wares of both Britain and Ireland, looking not just at regionality but also dating. Radiocarbon dates are currently largely restricted to individual site assemblages but this book will bring together regional dates to present a national overview. Following the format of the Grooved Ware volume, this will be presented as a series of regional syntheses, written by acknowledged experts in their field, with a final chapter to draw together the first truly national consideration of this important ceramic tradition, examining not just its origins, its regional nuances of style but also its much debated legacy.