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Prehistoric Landscape and Late Iron Age Agriculture South of Banbury: Excavations at Wykham Park Farm and Bloxham Road
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- Book:
- Oxoniensia
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 15 May 2024, pp 73-108
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Summary
SUMMARY
Two adjacent excavations on the southern outskirts of Banbury recorded an extensive landscape of prehistoric features. Neolithic evidence, some of it probably representing activities associated with the adjacent Wykham Farm causewayed enclosure, included a pit and a tree-throw hole that contained sherds of early Neolithic Plain Bowl pottery, a pair of pits with middle Neolithic Mortlake Ware, and a feature that produced a late Neolithic radiocarbon date and is likely to represent a cremation burial or a pair of such features. A group of three unurned cremation burials was attributed to the middle Bronze Age on the basis of radiocarbon dates from two of them, and an isolated inhumation burial was radiocarbon dated to the early Iron Age (late sixth or fifth century cal BC). No other features or artefacts from either of these periods was found, suggesting that the burials were located away from areas of settlement. Following an apparent hiatus of several centuries, there was a burst of settlement and agricultural activity that extended from the first century BC to the end of the first century AD. Two discrete enclosures may represent successive late Iron Age settlements, and a field system continued into the early Roman period, when a third enclosure, possibly for livestock, was constructed beside it. The features form part of an extensive though short-lived episode of occupation, and it is possible that the Iron Age enclosures represent the pastoral component of a farmstead with a domestic and arable focus represented by a complex of enclosures that has been separately excavated in the fields adjacent to the east.
Oxford Archaeology (OA) and Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) undertook adjacent excavations on former agricultural land on the southern outskirts of Banbury in advance of separate housing developments. The MOLA site, known as East of Bloxham Road, was excavated between November 2014 and March 2015 and comprised a sub-rectangular arable field within the interstice formed by the junction of Bloxham Road and Salt Way, a historic route now used as a bridleway. The OA investigations were undertaken at Wykham Park Farm between November 2019 and May 2020 and encompassed six excavation areas situated across six fields to the south and east, as well as the footprint of a drainage outfall that extended to the south (Fig. 1).
A Neolithic Burial and Prehistoric to Anglo-Saxon Activity at Polar Technology, Eynsham
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- Book:
- Oxoniensia
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
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- 15 May 2024, pp 191-226
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Summary
SUMMARY
Excavation at the edge of a dense cropmark complex south of Eynsham uncovered features spanning the Neolithic to the medieval period. The cropmarks probably represent a monument complex that developed around the adjacent Eynsham causewayed enclosure, and the three earliest pits, associated with Decorated Bowl pottery (c.3770–3245 BC), may have been contemporary with the construction and use of the enclosure. Eight middle Neolithic pits associated with Peterborough Ware (mid-fourth millennium to early third millennium BC) were excavated. One contained the burial of a woman, accompanied by an oyster shell pendant and a whelk shell, both exotic items this far from the coast. The burial produced a radiocarbon date of 3340–3030 cal BC. Three pits dating from the earliest Iron Age, one possibly a waterhole, represent rare evidence for settlement of this period, and limited Roman activity was restricted to pits that were probably dug for gravel extraction. Anglo-Saxon occupation was represented by a sunken-featured building, and medieval evidence comprised further gravel pits, field boundaries and plough furrows.
Oxford Archaeology (OA) undertook an archaeological excavation in advance of construction of an industrial unit at Polar Technology’s headquarters at Oasis Business Park, Eynsham (NGR SP 42761 08768; Fig. 1). The site lay 1 km north-west of a northern loop in the River Thames by means of which the river circumvents the limestone outcrop of Wytham Hill before turning south to pass through Oxford. The northern boundary was marked by the Chil Brook, one of a number of minor watercourses that drain this flat agricultural landscape and flow eastward into the Thames, the confluence in this instance lying a short distance downstream of Eynsham Lock. Prior to excavation the site consisted of agricultural land, the northern part of which was crossed by a former railway line that had been tarmacked and used as a car park. The site was situated at c.66 m above Ordnance Datum on the Summertown-Radley gravel terrace of the Thames, a short distance off the alluviated part of the floodplain, which lies at c.60 m above OD.
The development area was situated partly within a scheduled monument, described in the listing as a ‘large and important concentration of cropmarks, mostly comprising Bronze Age ring ditches and barrows, and Iron Age/Roman enclosures and settlement sites’.
Between Hill and Valley: Iron Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Settlement and Farming Activity at Crab Hill, near Wantage
- Edited by Stephen Mileson
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- Book:
- Oxoniensia
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 February 2024
- Print publication:
- 06 December 2022, pp 249-324
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Summary
SUMMARY
Excavations to the north-east of Wantage (formerly Berks.) uncovered an Iron Age settlement that was established in the eighth or seventh century BC. Eleven roundhouses, variously defined by postholes and penannular ditches, dated to the earliest or early Iron Age. A total of fifteen roundhouses defined by penannular ditches dated to the middle Iron Age, alongside further settlement features. Activity appears to have diminished during the late Iron Age before the site was significantly reorganised early in the Roman period when two rectilinear enclosures and minor subsidiary enclosures were established. These enclosures were recut multiple times throughout the following centuries and the organisation of the site remained remarkably consistent until its abandonment at the end of the fourth century AD. Corndryers dating to the middle and late Roman periods suggest a focus on cereal processing. One early Anglo-Saxon sunken-featured building was discovered, probably dating to the sixth or seventh century AD. The site was cultivated in the later medieval period, signified by the presence of numerous furrows, and a trackway of late fifteenth- to sixteenth-century date was found to extend southwards towards Wantage.
In 2018 Oxford Archaeology (OA) undertook an archaeological excavation within an 83 ha site in advance of housing development at Crab Hill, located c.1.4 km from the historic core of Wantage at NGR SU 40510 89010 (Fig. 1). The site is located on Upper Greensand Formation at c.75–80 m above OD on the southern edge of the Vale of White Horse, c.5 km north of the escarpment of the Berkshire Downs. Following geophysical survey and evaluation trenching, two areas within the development site were found to contain significant archaeological remains that were previously seen as cropmarks (Fig. 2). Area 1 was excavated over 2.4 ha, revealing a concentration of archaeological features dating from the late Bronze Age to the later medieval period. Area 2 – where the evaluation trenching revealed Iron Age settlement features – will be subject to a future phase of development work.
The discoveries at Crab Hill complement a considerable amount of work that has been previously undertaken around Wantage and Grove, as well as numerous smaller excavations within Wantage itself. Together these discoveries are beginning to build a picture of a fairly intensively settled farming landscape during the Iron Age and Roman periods.