The Collfryn Hillslope Enclosure, Llansantffraid Deuddwr, Powys: Excavations 1980–1982

The report on partial rescue excavations of the Collfryn enclosure between 1980–82 presents a summary of the first large-scale investigation of one of the numerous semi-defensive cropmark and earthwork enclosure sites in the upper Severn valley in mid-Wales. Earlier prehistoric activity of an ephemeral nature is represented by a scattering of Mesolithic and Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age flintwork, and by a pit containing sherds of several different Beaker vessels. The first enclosed settlement, constructed in about the 3rd century bc probably consisted of three widely-spaced concentric ditches, associated with banks of simple dump construction, having a single gated entranceway on the downhill side. It covered an area of about 2.5 ha and appears to have been of a relatively high social status, and appropriate in size for a single extended-family group. This was subsequently reduced in about the 1st century bc to a double-ditched enclosure, by the recutting of the original inner ditch and the cutting of a new ditch immediately outside it. The habitation area between the 3rd and 1st centuries bc probably focused on timber buildings in the central enclosure of about 0.4 ha, whose gradually evolving pattern appears to have comprised between 3–4 roundhouses and 4–5 four-posters at any one time. Little excavation was undertaken between the outer ditches of the first phase settlement, but these are assumed to have been used as stock enclosures. A mixed farming economy is suggested by cattle, sheep/goat and pig remains, and remains of glume wheats, barley and oats. Industries included small-scale iron and bronze-working. The Iron Age settlement was essentially aceramic, although there are significant quantities of a coarse, oxidized ceramic probably representing salt traded from production centres in the Cheshire Plain. The entranceway was remodelled in about the late 1st or early 2nd, century AD by means of a timber-lined passage linked to a new gate on the line of the inner bank. There is equivocal evidence of continued occupation within the inner enclosure continuing until at least the mid-4th century AD, possibly at a comparatively low social level, associated with domestic structures of uncertain form sited on earlier roundhouse platforms, and including some four-posters and possible six-posters. Drainage ditches were dug across parts of the site during the Medieval and post-Medieval periods, which were associated with various structures, including a corn-drying kiln inserted into the inner enclosure bank in the 15th century.

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Excavations at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ◽

10.1017/s0079497x00005119 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 56 ◽

pp. 179-245 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

D. G. Benson ◽

J. G. Evans ◽

G. H. Williams ◽

T. Darvill ◽

A. David ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Soil Formation ◽

Environmental Data ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Age Group ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

Field System ◽

Cereal Grain ◽

Ceramic Assemblages

Excavations of sites spanning the Beaker to early Roman periods at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed, are described. The sites are in an area of blown sand which enhanced their preservation and led to the separation of several horizons. The earliest is a buried soil beneath the blown sand which contained Mesolithic to Bronze Age artefacts. At site A, there was a roundhouse associated with Early Bronze Age pottery and dated to 1620±70 and 1400±70 BC uncal., and two other roundhouses, one possibly of Beaker age. After a period of soil formation, a ritual complex of Later Bronze Age date was established, this contemporary with the earliest besanding of the area; it included a stone setting of more than 2000 small stones, an alignment of small water-worn stones and a standing stone. A cremation gave a latest date of 940±70 BC uncal. Other Later Bronze Age activity is recorded at site G/J in the form of a rectangular enclosure, possibly unfinished.Late Iron Age to early Romano-British settlement was present at sites A and B, consisting of scatters of occupation debris, burnt mounds, cooking pits, hearths and houses, some of stone, some of timber, all taking place in an area being intermittently besanded.Peripheral to the religious and domestic sites, a field system was excavated. The earliest phase was a linear earthwork from which a C14 date of 400±70 BC uncal. was obtained from charcoal in the ditch. After the decay of this, rectangular fields with stone walls were laid out, one along the line of the erstwhile earthwork, this taking place around the end of the Iron Age as dated by C14 of charcoal directly beneath a wall to 90±70 BC uncal. Some of the fields had been cultivated by a succession of cross- and one-way-ploughing, others used for cattle.An assemblage of 763 flints included a few Mesolithic artefacts but was mostly of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age date. A succession of ceramic assemblages included a small Middle Neolithic group (4 vessels), two distinct Beaker groups, one early (Lanting and van der Waals steps 1–3 (8 vessels), one late (steps 3–6) (45 vessels), an Early Bronze Age group of collared urns (43 vessels) and a Later Bronze Age group (26 vessels).Environmental data was not prolific but there was a small quantity of animal bone, mostly cattle and sheep, and cereal grain, mostly barley with some wheat. Marine molluscs were present but sparsely utilized and there was no other indication of the exploitation of the coastal resources such as seals, birds, fish andiseaweed. Land Mollusca indicated open country from the Iron Age onwards when the record begins.The importance of the site is in the ritual complex from site A, the succession of Iron Age/Romano-British occupation horizons, the succession of ceramic assemblages, the field system and the fact that blown sand horizons have allowed the preservation and separation of the sequence much of which would have been at best conflated in to a single horizon or at worst destroyed. Otherwise, there is no evidence that the site was in any way special with regard to the relationship of human activity and sand deposition until the Middle Ages when the area was used as a rabbit warren. Nor was the coastal location important, at least as could be determined by the results. This was a representative of a succession of later prehistoric farming communities and their various domestic, ritual and sepulchral activities in lowland Dyfed.

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The Iron Age Enclosures and Prehistoric Landscape of Sutton Common, South Yorkshire

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ◽

10.1017/s0079497x00002449 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 63 ◽

pp. 221-259 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

M. Parker Pearson ◽

R.E. Sydes ◽

S. Boardman ◽

B. Brayshay ◽

P.C. Buckland ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Small Scale ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

Archaeological Data ◽

Plant Remains ◽

Archaeological Materials ◽

Middle Bronze Age

The Early Iron Age enclosures and associated sites on Sutton Common on the western edge of the Humberhead Levels contain an exceptional variety of archaeological data of importance not only to the region but for the study of later prehistory in the British Isles. Few other later prehistoric British sites outside the East Anglian fens and the Somerset Levels have thus far produced the quantity and quality of organically preserved archaeological materials that have been found, despite the small scale of the investigations to date. The excavations have provided an opportunity to integrate a variety of environmental analyses, of wood, pollen, beetles, waterlogged and carbonised plant remains, and of soil micromorphology, to address archaeological questions about the character, use, and environment of this Early Iron Age marsh fort. The site is comprised of a timber palisaded enclosure and a succeeding multivallate enclosure linked to a smaller enclosure by a timber alignment across a palaeochannel, with associated finds ranging in date from the Middle Bronze Age to the Roman and medieval periods. Among the four adjacent archaeological sites is an Early Mesolithic occupation site, also with organic preservation, and there is a Late Neolithic site beneath the large enclosure. Desiccation throughout the common is leading to the damage and loss of wooden and organic remains. It is hoped that the publication of these results, of investigations between 1987 and 1993, will lead to a fuller investigation taking place.

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Economic and social zones during the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age in Jæren, Southwest Norway. Reconstructing large-scale land-use patterns

Praehistorische Zeitschrift ◽

10.1515/pz-2018-0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 93 (1) ◽

pp. 48-88

Author(s):

Lisbeth Prøsch-Danielsen ◽

Christopher Prescott ◽

Mads Kähler Holst

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Large Scale ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

Land Use Patterns ◽

Use Patterns ◽

Large Scale Land

Zusammenfassung Basierend auf einer Untersuchung der ökologischen und archäologischen Hinterlassenschaften für Jæren, Südwest-Norwegen, wird vorgeschlagen, dass der Übergang zu einer agrar-pastoralen Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft am Übergang vom mittleren zum späten Neolithikum (2400–2350 v. Chr.) erfolgte und es in Folge zu einer raschen Strukturierung der besiedelten Kulturlandschaften kam. In den folgenden Jahrzehnten und Jahrhunderten entwickelte sich die Gesellschaft auf dieser Basis fort. >Eines der charakteristischen Merkmale der damaligen Landschaften ist, dass diese umfassend in das soziale und rituelle Leben integriert wurden, was auf lokaler Ebene zu einer Zonierung der Landschaft mit jeweils deutlichen Unterschieden in den wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und kulturellen Ausdrucksformen führte. In den offenen, gras- und heidedominierten Küstenzonen manifestiert sich der Befund auf monumentaler und ritueller Ebene, während geeignete quartäre Lagerstätten als Zonen unterschiedlich intensiven Getreideanbaus genutzt wurden. Die beschriebenen Landschaften entwickelten sich als Reaktion auf eine nachhaltige Wirtschaftspraxis, die eine kontinuierliche Ausweitung der Beweidung, eine Intensivierung der Getreideproduktion und den Zugang zu Kommunikationswegen umfasste. Unterschiede im Nutzungsdruck, in der Produktion und in der Wirtschaftsstrategie spiegeln eine Reihe von Umweltparametern wider. Somit korrelieren die Aktivitätszonen weitgehend mit physikalischen Eigenschaften der Landschaft, was offensichtlich sowohl einen adaptiven Aspekt in der Wirtschaft als auch Muster einer umfassenden Ressourcenausnutzung der Zonen widerspiegelt, etwa in der Kombination von Getreideproduktion, Wanderweidewirtschaft, Jagd und Zugang zu maritimen Engstellen. Zur Interpretation schlagen die Autoren ein Modell sozialer und wirtschaftlicher Organisationen und Interaktionen in der Region Jæren vor, basierend auf den Verteilungen mehrerer Kategorien archäologischer Funde. Das Modell präsentiert eine Reihe voneinander abhängiger Zonen innerhalb einer einheitlichen, aber diversifizierten Wirtschaft mit Querschnittsaktivitäten und Mobilitätsmustern. Der präsentierte Ansatz stellt eine Alternative zu bestehenden Hierarchiemodellen innerhalb begrenzter Gebiete dar. Die Landschaftszonierung in Jæren ähnelt jener in Westskandinavien, einschließlich Jütlands, Dänemark. Aus diesem Grund war die Einführung einer subsistenzorientierten, Feldbau und Weidewirtschaft kombinierenden Landwirtschaft in Jæren von externen Impulsen abhängig.

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Palestinian Excavations

Antiquity ◽

10.1017/s0003598x00023383 ◽

1950 ◽

Vol 24 (96) ◽

pp. 196-199

Author(s):

Kathleen M. Kenyon

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Large Scale ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Hill Country ◽

Chalcolithic Period ◽

First Millennium

Recent years have seen the publication of some sumptuous reports of the large scale excavations conducted by American enterprise in the years before the war. The sites of Megiddo and Beth-Shan, which can confidently be referred to by their historical and biblical names, are of outstanding importance, dominating as they do the Plain of Esdraelon and the great road from Egypt to North Syria and Mesopotamia. The publications here considered are the latest (but not, it is hoped, the last) of a series dealing with different aspects of the excavations. Both sites have been partially sounded to bed-rock, and show continuous occupation from thc chalcolithic period to the end of the first millennium B.C., and Beth-Shan beyond it. Tell en-Nasbeh is in a different category. It is possibly to be identified with the Biblical Mizpah, but this is not universally accepted. Like many Palestinian hill-country sites, it was occupied in the Early Bronze Age (the ascription of some groups to the chalcolithic period is unsatisfactory). Its main occupation is, however, confined to the Early Iron Age, from the time of the undivided Israelite Kingdom down to the post-exilic, Hellenistic and Roman periods.

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Orientations of Late Neolithic to Bronze Age and Iron Age Long Cairns in Coastal Finland

10.46472/cc.01221.0209 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 21 (1 and 2) ◽

pp. 73-86

Author(s):

Mariana P. Ridderstad

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Cultural Influences ◽

Cultural Continuity ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Western Coast ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

Different Types ◽

Middle Bronze Age

In this study, the orientations of c. 138 long cairns located in coastal Finland were measured and examined, along with other properties of the cairns. The length of the cairns varies from a few metres to almost 50 m. The dominant color of the stones in most of the cairns is red, and they were usually built on locally elevated terrain, e.g. on ridges, rocky outcrops or small islets on the ancient shore. It was found that in the category of long cairns there were several different types of elongated cairns: the ‘simple’ and curved long cairns, some of which were attached to round cairns; the rectangular cairns with one or more central chambers; the very large rectangular cairns; and two different types of ship-formed cairns, Type 1 and Type 2, the latter of which was a previously an unrecognised type of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age long cairn. The comparison of the orientations of the cairns of different types and locations suggest that there was some cultural continuity between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age cultures on the western coast of Finland. However, based on the present analysis, this continuity does not seem to have extended beyond the Middle Bronze Age. It is also suggested that the appearance of the Type 2 ship-formed cairn in the Ostrobothnia region in the Late Neolithic may have resulted from outside cultural influences, perhaps from the earliest contacts with the central ideologies of the Nordic Bronze Age.

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Excavations at a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure, Orsett, Essex, 1975

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ◽

10.1017/s0079497x0001015x ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 44 ◽

pp. 219-308 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

John Hedges ◽

David Buckley ◽

C. Bonsall ◽

I. A. Kinnes ◽

J. C. Barrett ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

The State ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

Rectangular Enclosure ◽

Middle Iron Age ◽

Post Hole ◽

Hole Structure

SummaryThe Causewayed Enclosure at Orsett, Essex, was trial trenched in 1975 to determine the state of site preservation and confirm its postulated Neolithic date and site sequence. The enclosure consisted of three incomplete circuits of discontinuous ditch with an associated timber palisade slot lying inside and concentric to the middle ditch. Within the interior was an oval post hole structure of a contemporary date. Quantities of Mildenhall style pottery and flint artifacts of the mid third millennium b.c. were recovered from the primary ditch silts and other features. A small quantity of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age wares came from the secondary ditch silts and the interior.Later phases on the site were represented by unenclosed Early Iron Age occupation, a Middle Iron Age sub-rectangular enclosure and Saxon ring-ditch burials.

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Steady transformation of primeval forest into subalpine pasture during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age (2300−1700 BC) in the Silvretta Alps, Switzerland

The Holocene ◽

10.1177/0959683619887419 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 30 (3) ◽

pp. 355-368 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Benjamin Dietre ◽

Thomas Reitmaier ◽

Christoph Walser ◽

Theresa Warnk ◽

Ingmar Unkel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Dairy Production ◽

European Alps ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

Vegetation Development ◽

Coprophilous Fungi ◽

Geochemical Analyses ◽

Xrf Analyses

The question of the origin of Alpine farming and pastoral activities associated with seasonal vertical transhumance and dairy production in the Silvretta Alps (Eastern Switzerland) has recently benefitted from renewed interest. There, pastoral practises began during the Late Neolithic (2300 BC), but alpine dairy farming was directly evidenced so far only since the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age (1300–500 BC). The vegetation development, timberline shifts at 2280 m a.s.l. and environmental conditions of the subalpine Urschai Valley (Canton of Grisons, Switzerland) were reconstructed for the small (8 m2) Plan da Mattun fen based on palynological and geochemical analyses for the last six millennia. The X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses are among the first ones performed on a European peatland in such altitudes. A high Rb/Sr ratio in the fen peat sediments revealed an increase in catchment erosion during the time when the forests of the Upper Urschai Valley were steadily diminished probably by fire and livestock impact (2300–1700 BC). These landscape openings were paralleled by increasing micro-charcoal influx values, suggesting that prehistoric people actively set fire on purpose. Simultaneously, palynological evidence for pastoralism was revealed, such as pollen from typical herbs indicating livestock trampling, and abundant spores from coprophilous fungi. Since then, vertical transhumance and pastoral activities remained responsible for the open subalpine landscape above 2000 m a.s.l., most probably also in the context of milk and dairy production since 1300 BC, which is characteristic for the European Alps until today.

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The impact of ancestral heath management on soils and landscapes: a reconstruction based on paleoecological analyses of soil records in the middle and southeast Netherlands

10.5194/soil-2015-83 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

M. Doorenbosch ◽

J. M. van Mourik

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Natural Habitat ◽

Forest Degradation ◽

Cattle Grazing ◽

Small Scale ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

The Impact ◽

The Bronze Age

Abstract. The evolution of heath lands during the Holocene has been registered in various soil records. Paleoecological analyses of these records enable to reconstruct the changing economic and cultural management of heaths and the consequences for landscape and soils. Heaths are characteristic components of cultural landscape mosaics on sandy soils in the Netherlands. The natural habitat of heather species was moorland. At first, natural events like forest fires and storms caused small-scale forest degradation, in addition on the forest degradation accelerated due to cultural activities like forest grazing, wood cutting and shifting cultivation. Heather plants invaded on degraded forest soils and heaths developed. People learned to use the heaths for economic and cultural purposes. The impact of the heath management on landscape and soils was registered in soil records of barrows, drift sand sequences and plaggic Anthrosols. Based on pollen diagrams of such records we could reconstruct that heaths were developed and used for cattle grazing before the Bronze Age. During the Late Neolithic, the Bronze Age and Iron Age, people created the barrow landscape on the ancestral heaths. After the Iron Age people probably continued with cattle grazing on the heaths and plaggic agriculture until the Early Middle Ages. After AD 1000 two events affected the heaths. At first deforestation for the sale of wood resulted in the first regional extension of sand drifting and heath degradation. After that the introduction of the deep stable economy and heath sods digging resulted in acceleration of the rise of plaggic horizons, severe heath degradation and the second extension of sand drifting. At the end of the 19th century the heath lost its economic value due to the introduction of chemical fertilizers. The heaths were transformed into "new" arable fields and forests and due to deep ploughing most soil archives were destroyed. Since AD 1980, the remaining relicts of the ancestral heaths are preserved and restored in the frame of the programs to improve the regional and national geo-biodiversity.

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Two North-West Suffolk Floors

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia ◽

10.1017/s0958841800023309 ◽

1915 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 39-41

Author(s):

W. G. Clarke

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Land Surface ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

North West ◽

Neolithic Age ◽

Dry Valley ◽

Rectangular Notch

In July last I discovered two “floors” or occupation-levels in North-West Suffolk, one of Neolithic age on Foxhole Heath, Eriswell, and the other of Early Iron age on Barnham Common, Thetford. The former was on the N.W. slope of a dry valley, about a mile in length, connected with a tongue of the fenland, and just below the 50 ft. contour. The thin layer of black earth which marked the land surface on which the Neolithic people lived and made their implements was covered by two or three feet of sand, almost stoneless and apparently wind-drifted. Some of this had been washed away, leaving a dark surface on which were potboilers, pottery, numerous cores, flakes and chips, and about thirty flint implements. The potsherds were kindly examined by Mr. A. G. Wright, who reported that it was difficult to date them, as that kind of ware lasted from Bronze Age to late Roman times. A small piece of red ware, with square or rectangular notch ornament, was evidently part of a beaker of Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. Beakers are usually found with inhumation burials, and are the earliest of the sepulchral types in this country.

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Excavation and Survey at Church Place, Denny Wait, in the New Forest in 2016/17

Hampshire Studies ◽

10.24202/hs2019005 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 74 (1) ◽

pp. 115-136

Author(s):

Paul Everill ◽

David Ashby ◽

Matt Leivers ◽

Lorraine Mepham ◽

Nick Watson

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

High Status ◽

Significant Activity ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

14Th Century ◽

15Th Century ◽

Edward Iii ◽

New Forest ◽

The University

This paper describes a programme of survey and excavation at the scheduled site of Church Place, Denny Wait in the New Forest that took place in 2016 and 2017 with a team from the University of Winchester. The extant earthworks at the site have been long considered to represent one of the royal hunting lodges built in the 14th century by command of Edward III, and is one of eight similar sites across the New Forest. While dating evidence was retrieved that confirm a 14th/15th century date for the earthworks, which share physical characteristics with other lodge sites in the forest, excavations indicate that the site was never the focus of high status activity. Of particular interest is the fact that the results do not actually support significant activity at the site of any kind, suggesting a far more temporary and occasional use of it, such as an ancillary encampment (eg for beaters), or as a meeting place. The work at the site unexpectedly also produced evidence of a previously unknown prehistoric enclosure underlying the medieval remains, probably dating to the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age.

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