Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph – serie

Archaeological investigations at Harding's Field, Chalgrove, revealed the remains of one of the most complete examples of a moated medieval manor yet excavated in England. Evidence of a pre-moat occupation dating from the first half of the 13th century, which may not have been seigneurial, was succeeded in the mid 13th century by the construction of the moated manor house. The documentary evidence indicates that this house belonged to the Barentins, a prominent Oxfordshire family. The manor underwent considerable alterations and improvements during the following 200 years, particularly during the early part of the 14th century and, to a lesser extent, in the late 14th and early 15th century. It passed out of the hands of the Barentin family shortly before it was demolished in the late 15th century.

Excavations conducted between 1981 and 1986 in advance of gravel extraction in Gravelly Guy field, Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, revealed archaeological evidence spanning from the Neolithic through to the Saxon period. Neolithic and early Bronze Age activity is represented by pit scatters and a series of ring ditches with associated burials. The Iron Age and early Roman periods witnessed the continuous development of a linear settlement, consisting of a dense area of pits, gullies, circular structures, four-posters and boundary ditches in the mid to late Iron Age phase and a series of rectilinear enclosures and unusual 'ramped hollows' and wells in the late Iron Age/early Roman period. Excavation of a section at the junction of the floodplain and the gravel terrace has also provided information regarding the changing land use and contemporary environment in the vicinity of the site. Gravelly Guy remains one of the most thoroughly excavated sites of this period in the Thames Valley. As well as the vast amount of structural evidence, the considerable quantities of artefacts and environmental information recovered, together with a series of ten radiocarbon dates, have resulted in a detailed study of the site, its position in the landscape and relationship to the contemporary archaeology of the surrounding area.

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.

For over 500 years, from the middle Iron Age to the early Roman period, the 1st gravel terrace of the river Thames at Thornhill Farm appears to have been lived in and worked as a cattle ranch. Extensive excavations by Oxford Archaeology between 1986 and 1989 revealed large parts of the settlement, including paddocks, stock enclosures and droveways, all designed to control and manage the herds of animals. Evidence for domestic houses points to small family groups living at the site and tending to the livestock. The surrounding gravel terraces and floodplain would have formed open pastureland, upon which lay a number of other settlements, some of which were also operating specialist pastoral economies. The settlement at Thornhill Farm was constantly being developed and remodelled until the early 2nd century AD, when it was replaced by a series of trackways and some of the earliest hay meadows in Britain. What happened to the inhabitants of Thornhill Farm at this time is unknown, but it seems likely that the whole settlement was subsumed into a larger agricultural estate based at neighbouring Claydon Pike. The excavations at Thornhill Farm formed part of a co-ordinated archaeological response to the threat posed by gravel extraction during the creation of the Cotswold Water Park. This book presents the results of this phase of work, and discusses the significance of the site within the local and regional landscape.

Between 1983–5 excavation of 3.5 ha of gravel terrace at Barrow Hills, Radley, recorded three distinct phases of activity on a site whose existence was known from aerial photography: a prehistoric monument complex, a Romano-British cemetery and an early Anglo-Saxon settlement. The prehistoric features are reported on in Volume 1 (Barclay and Halpin, 1999). This report, Volume 2, deals with the Romano-British cemetery and Anglo-Saxon settlement. The Romano-British cemetery consisted of 69 burials dating to the 3rd and 4th centuries and occurring as both distinct burials groups and isolated graves. There were 57 inhumations and 12 cremations, 6 of which were within a square ditched enclosure. The skeletal assemblage was well preserved. The report considers the evidence for the organisation of the cemetery, orientation, age and sex, body position, decapitation, coffins, inhumation versus cremation, grave goods, chronology and location. It is likely that the area of the prehistoric barrow cemetery was not cultivated in the Romano-British period, and the cemetery may have been laid out along the line of a north-south trackway. It probably served as the cemetery for the adjacent settlement site of Barton Court Farm (Miles 1986), and the cemetery groupings are compared with the population models postulated for that site. The Anglo-Saxon settlement was represented by 22 post-built structures, 45 sunken-featured buildings, 2 inhumations, pits, fills of prehistoric barrow ditches and various other features. The settlement is dated by finds evidence to the 4th to early 7th centuries. The Anglo-Saxon features at Barton Court Farm, previously published in fiche, are also listed here. Chapter 3 describes the features and the evidence for their construction and use. Chapter 4 discusses the pottery assemblage, one of the largest excavated in England with a total weight of 127.62 kg. Chapter 5 deals with the small finds, and the environmental evidence is described in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 discusses the evidence for the settlement. It is suggested that the sunken-featured buildings and barrow ditches were backfilled deliberately using tertiary midden material, and that this makes dating individual features and hence phasing the site difficult. The Anglo-Saxon features at Barton Court Farm may have been part of the same settlement. It is posited that the central cluster of buildings at Barrow Hills, with a hall positioned end-on to buildings arranged around three sides of an open space in a grouping reminiscent of Chalton and Cowdery’s Down, was located in relation to the Romano-British cemetery and it trackway. The barrow ditches, in contrast, were deliberately filled with rubbish. There is some evidence for variation in function between different parts of the site, with a higher proportion of butchery waste from the ditches of barrows 12 and 13.

The Cotswold Water Park Project is a landscape study centred upon parts of the Upper Thames Valley within what is now the Cotswold Water Park. The report is based upon four key excavated rural settlements, the most extensive being that at Claydon Pike, which dated primarily from the middle Iron Age to the late Roman period. A number of middle Saxon burials were also found. The other Water Park settlements dated to the late Iron Age-Roman period and the 2nd to 3rd century AD. The report has incorporated the results of these excavations into a wider synthesis of landscape development in the region, including aspects of material culture, environment and the economy.

The archaeological remains at Roughground Farm cover an area of c 8 hectares on the second gravel terrace just north of Lechlade between the rivers Leach and Thames (SP 216/009 to 221/005). The site was investigated by Margaret Jones in advance of gravel extraction between 1957 and 1965. These excavations revealed evidence of occupation from the Late Neolithic to the end of the Roman period and represent one of the first landscape studies undertaken in this country. The work was stimulated by the discovery of a Roman villa, whose buildings were partly investigated in 1957 and 1959. Further excavations on the villa buildings were carried out by Tim Allen in 1981-2 and in 1990 prior to a housing development.The Neolithic occupation consists of a small cluster of pits containing Grooved Ware, contrasting with a dispersed scatter of pits with Beaker pottery. The Earlier Bronze Age is only represented by a stray sherd, but there is a wide scatter of Later Bronze Age pits, which tend to congregate in small groups. In the Early Iron Age the landscape was divided by large boundary ditches, roughly parallel to one another and at right angles to the river Leach, with smaller ditched subdivisions. This land-division appears to respect established trackways, which met within the excavated area. Pit groups indicate an arable economy and occupation, including posthole groups and burials, was concentrated at the east edge of the site.The Middle and Late Iron Ages are hardly represented, but an Early Roman native settlement was established just west of the trackways. This included an oval house-enclosure with accompanying pit-group, small stock enclosures, and pens, lying within a larger rectilinear enclosure. Between the trackways and the settlement was an open 'green'-like area. The economy was similar to that of the Iron Age and this settlement persisted until the early 2nd century AD, when it was replaced by the building of a villa.At least two masonry buildings were put up in the mid 2nd century and were surrounded by an enclosure ditch. One of these was an aisled building, with^an apsidal end unique in Roman Britain. Outside this was a regular system of paddocks and larger fields laid out to a standard unit of length. The villa occupation area, however, kept within the limits of the preceding native settlement. Trackways and droveways approaching the villa were delineated by boundary ditches.In the 3rd century another large domestic building was constructed, while the ends of the trackways east of the villa were overlaid by two groups of enclosures facing each other across the 'green', which were used for various agricultural and semi-industrial activities and may also have been occupied. These may represent centralisation of the villa's estate management. Small groups of late Roman burials were found in and around these enclosures. In the 4th century, if not before, another domestic building was added to the villa. Occupation of the villa and adjacent enclosures continued beyond 360 AD, but possibly not as late as the end of the 4th century.There was very little evidence of Saxon activity, although the villa buildings were robbed for stone for graves in this period. The east part of the site was overlaid by ridge and furrow in the medieval period and the west appears to have been pasture; both parts remained open fields until gravel extraction began in the 1930s. Virtually the whole site has now been destroyed.

The Oxford Archaeological Unit carried out excavations at the Roman `small town' of Asthall, in advance of the construction of a Thames Water pipeline. The excavation located the axial Roman road through the settlement and a complex sequence of timber and stone structures which fronted onto the road were partially revealed. These buildings range in date from the mid 1st century AD through to the 4th century. Closer to the settlement margin an ironworking area and a later enclosure containing a small late Roman cemetery were examined. This report describes these excavations and discusses the artefacts including coins and ironwork and pottery. Chapters also discuss the burials, animal bones and environmental remains.

The gravel terraces of the river Thames have revealed a wealth of archaeological information about the evolution of the landscape of the region, the development of the settlement pattern, and past human occupation. Much of this has come to light in the course of gravel quarrying, which has been so extensive that the Thames Valley now provides one of the richest resources of archaeological data in the country. This volume provides an up to date overview of the archaeological evidence from the valley for the late Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods, broadly speaking the first millennium AD. The area studied in detail comprises the Upper Thames Valley, from the source of the river to the Goring Gap, and the Middle Thames Valley, from the Goring Gap to the start of the tidal zone at Teddington Lock. A summary of evidence for the character of the river and the vegetation and environment of its floodplain is followed by a detailed account of the evolving settlement pattern as currently understood from archaeological evidence. The authors then consider what archaeology can reveal about the late Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon populations of the valley, and their changing lifestyles, culture, identities and beliefs. This is followed by a review of the evidence for production, trade, transport and communication, and the archaeology of power and politics. The volume concludes with a discussion of the state of knowledge today and its limitations, and emerging themes and problem areas for future research.

Excavations at Spring Road Municipal Cemetery, Abingdon, Oxfordshire have revealed activity extending from the Mesolithic to the Saxon period. The most significant discovery was an arc of substantial postholes which formed part of one of very few middle Bronze timber circles known in southern Britain. The most important earlier evidence was a Beaker burial containing a copper awl which is amongst the earliest metal artefacts from Britain. Mesolithic flint, an oval Peterborough Ware bowl and a Grooved Ware pit were also found. A group of three middle Iron Age crouched inhumation burials are amongst the most interesting later finds, which included also an early-middle Iron Age roundhouse, a Roman field system and Anglo-Saxon sunken-featured buildings.

A review of the rich and diverse evidence for understanding past climate and environmental change in the Thames Valley, and the effects on plant and animal populations and the challenges and opportunities these presented to early humans. Part 1 of this volume covers the Pleistocene, the epoch of the Ice Ages, in an integrated review of the geological, palaeontological and archaeological data for the last half million years and more. Part 2 takes up the story from the beginning of the Holocene, the warm period in which we are still living, which began around 11,500 years ago. The authors review the evidence for early hunter-gatherer populations in the Mesolithic, the gradually increasing impact of humans in the region in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age and their rich social lives and belief systems. Much of the evidence has been recovered during extensive gravel quarrying. The volume is excellently illustrated with colour and line illustrations and maps.

In common with other volumes in the Thames Through Time series, this account of the Thames Valley in the millennium and a half before the Roman conquest seeks to examine change in human society from a thematic point of view. The geographical and chronological framework for this volume is established in Chapters 1 and 2, but thereafter we have tried to get away from the traditional, somewhat artificial pigeon-holes of 'periods' 'ages' 'eras' and 'phases' to look much harder at how change in human society actually works. In a period when the 20th century has come to dominate secondary school history and much popular TV, the notion that the first foundations of modern society can be traced back more than 3000 years may seem a rather surprising proposition. But some fundamental patterns of settlement and landuse, political boundaries, human impact on the environment, and even the specific use and form of a few places can be traced back to late prehistoric times despite millennia of subsequent change - even though otherwise we may now have very little in common with those remote ancestors. Exploring these issues on a thematic basis should help us to gain a better understanding of how human society evolves and also of how people have altered their natural environment, providing a better long term perspective on what we are doing to the planet.

Recent excavations at Taplow Court (at NGR SU 907 823), undertaken in advance of the construction of a Conference Hall for the owners Soka Gakkai International-UK, have revealed a long sequence of activity stretching from the Mesolithic to the Anglo-Saxon period. Mesolithic struck flints and charred hazelnuts, and early Neolithic flints, were found in a small number of tree-throw holes. A group of intercutting hollows or shallow pits of early Bronze Age date included sherds of Collared Urn and worked flint, rare evidence of domestic activity of this period. There were also finds of the middle Bronze Age, although no features of that phase were confirmed. In the late Bronze Age, a defensible hilltop enclosure, just over 1 ha in area, was constructed on the site. The enclosure, probably first established in the 11th century BC, had a complex sequence of defences including a pair of posthole rows possibly indicating a timber palisade backed by a raised walkway, a trench-built palisade, a ditch and rampart and further posthole-lines outside the ditch. Only a limited area of the interior was examined, but it contained a series of parallel fence lines, one probable roundhouse and up to six possible four-post structures, with occupation extending into the 9th century BC. There followed a probable hiatus in activity represented by a very slow-forming deposit – termed in this report the ‘standstill’ layer – in the upper part of the ditch. Subsequently a larger U-profiled hillfort ditch was constructed in the early Iron Age, probably in the 5th century BC, the spoil being dumped over the previous ditch to form a timber-laced rampart. Another internal roundhouse may be middle Iron Age in date. Soon after its construction the rampart was destroyed in places by fire, and remains of the charred timbers within the rampart have revealed some details of the ramparts construction. In contrast, the associated ditch remained open into the Saxon period. A third and even larger V-profiled ditch was found outside the second ditch. Although the date of construction of this outer ditch is uncertain, it too remained open into the Saxon period, suggesting that the hillfort was multivallate in its later stages. The abandoned hillfort was re-occupied in the Saxon period, probably in the late 6th or early 7th century AD, at roughly the same time as the rich burial within the Taplow Mound. No evidence for reconstruction of the hillfort was found but considerable quantities of domestic material were deposited within the surviving Iron Age hillfort ditches. Amongst the domestic debris was a sherd probably from an eastern Mediterranean amphora, the first from Buckinghamshire, and an indicator of high status. A fragmentary early Anglo-Saxon inhumation associated with a knife was found in the entrance to the hillfort. The ditches were finally infilled in the 11th-12th century AD.

An excavation by Oxford Archaeology in 2008 at Kingshill North, to the north-east of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, uncovered evidence for prehistoric occupation. The earliest evidence comprised storage pits dating to the late Neolithic period. Some of the features contained Grooved Ware pottery decorated with exceptionally rare ‘lattice lozenge’ motifs, pig bones suggestive of feasting, bone pins and awls, worked flint imported from some distance, and fragments of Cornish axe heads. The pit groups point to a community able to mobilise a wide range of resources and dispose of them in a highly visible way. The fieldwork uncovered two Beaker burials, one enclosed by a ring-ditch. The isotopes from the individuals indicate that they were not local; one individual came from the chalklands of eastern or southern England, the other was from a more southwesterly chalkland region. As such they fit within an emerging picture of population mobility. Another inhumation grave, dated to the middle Bronze Age, was also recorded. More storage pits were dug during the middle Iron Age. These were filled with domestic waste, but there was evidence of structured deposits in the form of crow or rook and dog burials. The late Iron Age settlement comprised a sequence of ditches which formed boundaries or enclosures and surrounded structures and pits. These were set within a pastoral landscape and areas of grassland and meadows. Three human burials, all interred in ditches, were also recorded. The settlement was within the territory of the Dobunni, whose centre was at nearby Bagendon, but the inhabitants of Kingshill North did not benefit materially from the proximity, and their focus remained local. The settlement was abandoned by the late 1st century AD, before or coincident with the establishment of the Roman town of Corinium Dobunnorum, although agricultural activity continued to a limited extent through the Roman period, and there was a single cremation burial dated between the late 1st and mid 3rd century AD. The medieval and postmedieval periods were represented by an agricultural landscape of field boundaries and drainage features.

Excavations carried out by Oxford Archaeology in advance of the building of the Oracle shopping centre revealed a long sequence of development of the Kennet floodplain at Reading. This volume reports on the substantial evidence recovered for medieval and post-medieval water management, milling at the Minster Mill and St Giles Mill, the tanning, leather working and dyeing industries, and an unusual building interpreted as the 12th- to 13th-century cookhouse of Reading Abbey. The stories of two well-known Reading sites, the Oracle Workhouse and the Yield Hall, are followed from the medieval period up to the 19th century. Substantial specialist reports include pottery, glass, leatherworking, dendrochronology and clay pipes.

This volume presents the results of two excavations on the gravel terraces of the Lower Kennet Valley, at Green Park (Reading Business Park) Phase 3 and Moores Farm, Burghfield, Berkshire.The Green Park excavations uncovered a field system and occupation features dating to the middle to late Bronze Age. Five waterholes or wells were distributed across the field system, the waterlogged fills of which preserved wooden revetment structures and valuable environmental evidence. The pottery from the waterholes makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the middle to late Bronze Age transition in the region. Later activity included middle to late Iron Age boundaries, a late Iron Age cremation burial, a Romano-British field system and post-medieval trackways.The Moores Farm excavations revealed occupation from the Mesolithic, Neolithic, middle Bronze Age and early Iron Age. The middle Bronze Age settlement included pits, ovens and possible post structures, and was again situated within a contemporaneous field system dotted with waterholes.As well as discussing these two sites, the volume provides an overview of all of the work to date in the Green Park Farm/Reading Business Park area, exploring the development of this important prehistoric landscape.

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.

A rich prehistoric landscape was unexpectedly revealed on the Thames floodplain during investigations in advance of gravel extraction in the parishes of Yarnton and Cassington. This fascinating study examines this 2500-year settlement history and its changing landscape context on the gravel islands, silted up river channels and adjacent gravel terrace. The strength of the narrative derives from the longevity of occupation, but also the ability to combine and compare a suite of evidence related to house construction, burial practices, pit digging, craft activity, farming strategies, and interaction and exchange with nearby and distant communities.The earliest evidence for more than transient occupation was the construction of a substantial, rectangular post-built house at the beginning of the Neolithic (c 3800 cal BC); traces of midden activity, pit digging and cremation burial were also found, as well as asmall, circular early Neolithic house dated to c 3600 cal BC. The volume then traces the changing character of settlement through a period of frequent but short-lived occupation events in the middle and late Neolithic and the early Bronze Age, a time when ceremonial monuments were constructed and burials were made, to more permanent settlement in the early to middle Bronze Age. Later Bronze Age settlement was focused on small circular and oval houses surrounded by evidence for domestic activity, perhaps representing single generation households.

The valley floodplain landscape covered by the Gill Mill quarry, almost 130ha, was intensively exploited from about 300 BC at a variety of Iron Age settlements. The largest of these remained in occupation into the early 3rd century AD, but meanwhile a large nucleated settlement grew up around a road junction roughly 1km distant to the NW. This became the sole focus of occupation, covering an area of about 10ha. Featuring multiple ditched enclosures, some in very regular layouts associated with one of the roads, the settlement contained relatively few identified buildings and appears to have had a specialised economic role related to systematic cattle management, illuminated in part by large finds and environmental assemblages. It may have been an integral component of a wider estate holding and perhaps had an administrative focus (including a shrine) at its unexcavated centre. It is notable that occupation of the site had almost entirely ceased by about AD 370.

The Upper Thames Valley is an important area for prehistoric monuments and has one of the highest concentrations of cursuses, distinctive linear or elongated earthworks, in Britain. In the 1980s the Oxford Archaeological Unit along with the Abingdon Area Archaeological and Historical Society had the opportunity to extensively investigate one of these sites at Drayton. This site has produced many significant results for our present understanding of the date, construction and use of cursus monuments on the lowland river gravels of Britain. This volume reports on the excavations at Drayton, and includes an account of small-scale excavations undertaken at the Lechlade cursus by OAU and Lance and Faith Vatcher. It also provides a gazetteer of known cursus monuments in the Upper Thames Valley.