Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph – serie

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.

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.