Cotswold Archaeology Monograph – serie

Archaeological surveys and excavations were carried out between 2006 and 2010 in advance of the construction of a gas pipeline in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds. They resulted in the discovery of many new sites and the investigation of eighteen of them dating from the prehistoric to medieval periods.Early Neolithic and Beaker/Early Bronze Age pits in the southern part of the route near Winstone, suggest transitory occupation in early prehistoric times. Early Bronze Age cremation graves on lower ground near Stanway were associated with two slightly later ring-ditches, and another Bronze Age ring-ditch was excavated at Foxcote Hill. A segmented boundary ditch near Winstone was also the location of Iron Age and Roman activity. An Iron Age settlement on Salter’s Hill, Winchcombe, included an Early Iron Age roundhouse, while Middle Iron Age grain-storage pits here and elsewhere indicated other farming settlements. Late Iron Age and Roman occupations in the high Wolds showed a range of remains, including unusual deposits of artefacts, animal bones and burials.A fragmentary sequence of Anglo-Saxon boundary burials was found at the southern end of the route near Sapperton. In the same area, two 12th- to 13th-century buildings near Overley Wood may have been part of the medieval settlement of Pinbury. Trackways revealed near Coberley, Foxcote and Hailes linked rural settlements in historical times.The range of sites and finds from these investigations provide important new information on the human past across parts of a landscape in many respects considered to be marginal.

Excavations at 1–2 and 3 Redcliff Street, Bristol, crossed a number of historic properties and revealed domestic and industrial remains dating from the establishment of the Redcliffe suburb in the 12th century through to the later post-medieval period.Cloth-dying was the dominant industry in Redcliffe in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the well preserved remains of dye-stuffs as well as leather shoes and off-cuts from a cobbler’s workshop were recovered from water-logged pit fills. The pits also yielded the largest assemblage of pottery of its kind from the city to date. The presence of stone-built dye-vat hearths suggest that cloth dyeing continued into the 14th century, when a pair of substantial town houses were also built. Late 14th-century remains include a furnace for lead-bronze casting, which produced cauldrons, posnets and smaller items, including candlesticks, and heralded a new phase of industry that became the pre-eminent activity for the next 200 years. The reverberatory furnaces are amongst the earliest examples of this advanced form of furnace known in Britain. In the 17th century, historic properties were amalgamated to establish a sugar refinery.Other significant aspects of the site evidence include the re-use of architectural fragments from the medieval church of St Thomas, and a large assemblage of clay-pipe kiln material. The discussion and interpretation of the excavated remains is augmented by documentary and historical research which, combined with evidence from other excavations in Redcliffe, further enriches the story of the urban development and economic history of this important suburb of Bristol.

Two enclosures were recorded – near Rodway was discovered a small Middle Bronze Age farmstead containing evidence of two roundhouses, with associated pottery and plant remains; and at Sandy Lane a Roman villa was shown to have developed from a Late Iron Age ridge-top settlement.

Details results of excavations along the A477 from St Clears to Red Roses during the Road Improvement Scheme, 2012. Finds include a Mesolithic site in the lower Tâf valley; early Neolithic pits and a post-built structure at Cildywyll; the remains of an Early Bronze Age barrow, 38 burials (some urned), a pyre site, and a Middle Bronze Age drying oven near St Clears; and A Bronze Age burnt mound near Red Roses.

This book rescribes the results of excavations undertaken between 2017 and 2018 in advance of a housing development at Picket Twenty, Andover, Hampshire. The excavations revealed a barrow cemetery dating to the Early Bronze Age (2150–1500 BC). The barrow cemetery lies within the upper reaches of the Test Valley, an area of chalkland known as the Hampshire Downs. The earliest barrow contained a Beaker burial, a possible ‘founder’ monument for the cemetery. The barrows had suffered plough damage and no mounds or earthworks survived into modern times. However, the barrows were still extant during the Roman and medieval periods , as evidenced by extensive deposits of Roman refuse in the ditches, and a few medieval finds. The barrow ditches ranged in size and form and whilst most were round, there were two oval examples. More unusual was a post alignment and stake circle outside the barrows. Most of the monuments were associated with the burial of cremated remains, some of which occurred with Collared Urn pottery. Pyre goods were occasionally present, whilst no evidence for in situ pyre sites was identified. The earliest settlement evidence includes a Beaker pit of Chalcolithic (2400–2150 BC) date and a small number of dispersed timber structures comprising a roundhouse and a fence line that indicate small-scale open settlement across the landscape during the later Bronze Age (1500–1150 BC).

Between 2022 and 2023, archaeological investigations were undertaken at Harlestone Park, Northamptonshire, exposing evidence for a landscape shaped by humans over several millennia. Straddling the Dallington Brook near New Duston, the site has shed light on how this riparian landscape has been exploited in varying ways since the Early Neolithic through to the modern day. Initially occupied periodically, perhaps on a seasonal basis, the site eventually became a focus for funerary activity during the Middle Bronze Age, with two groups of cremation burials situated either side of the brook. Subsequently, during the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age, the site was incorporated into an area demarcated by an extensive network of boundaries defined by alignments of pits.