Later Prehistoric and Romano-British Burial and Settlement at Hucclecote, Gloucestershire
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LATER PREHISTORIC AND ROMANO-BRITISH BURIAL AND SETTLEMENT AT HUCCLECOTE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE by Alan Thomas, Neil Holbrook and Clifford Bateman COTSWOLD ARCHAEOLOGY Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Report No. 2 By agreement with Cotswold Archaeology this report is distributed free to members of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society To accompany Volume 121 of the Society's Transactions for 2003 LATER PREHISTORIC AND ROMANO-BRITISH BURIAL AND SEITLEMENT AT HUCCLECOTE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE EXCAVATIONS IN ADVANCE OF THE GLOUCESTER BUSINESS PARK LINK ROAD, 1998 by Alan Thomas, Neil Holbrook and Clifford Bateman with contributions by Helen S. Bowstead Stallybrass, Nina Crummy, Peter Guest, Emma Harrison, Fiona Roe, Tracy Stickler, Jane Timby, Alan Vince, Tony Waldron, Graeme Walker and Tim Young COTSWOLD ARCHAEOLOGY Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Report No. 2 By agreement with Cotswold Archaeology this report is distributed free to members of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society To accompany Volume 121 of the Society's Transactions for 2003 BRISTOL AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REPORT NO. 2 © Authors and Cotswold Archaeological Trust Ltd, 2003 Building 11, Kemble Enterprise Park, Cirencester, Glos. GL7 6BQ All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of Cotswold Archaeological Trust Ltd. ISSN 1479-2389 ISBN 09523196 7 5 Cotswold Archaeological Trust Ltd. Building 11 Kemble Enterprise Park Cirencester, Glos. GL7 6BQ Series Editor: Martin Watts Produced by Cotswold Archaeological Trust Ltd, Cirencester Printed by Trio Graphics Ltd, Gloucester ii EXCAVATIONS AT HUCCLECOTE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE CONTENTS Contents ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ 2 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3 Excavation Results ....................................................................................................................... 8 The Radiocarbon Dates .............................................................................................................. 30 The Finds ..................................................................................................................................... 31 The Biological Evidence ............................................................................................................. 56 Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 62 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 68 1 BRISTOL AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REPORT NO. 2 ABSTRACT Excavations in advance of the construction of the Gloucester Business Park Link Road, Hucclecote, in 1998 revealed alluvium deposited by the Horsbere Brook, in places up to 2m deep. Radiocarbon dating demonstrates that the alluvium had been deposited by the 12th century BC. Three or four Middle Bronze Age cremation burials were probably part of a flat cemetery, the site subsequently occupied by a Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age settlement which contained in excess of four post-built roundhouses. In the 1st century AD a settlement that contained a number of probable mass-walled roundhouses was constructed. It was extensively reorganised in the early 2nd century when a series of ditched enclosures were linked to Ermin Street by a 320m-long trackway. A small cemetery of 12 inhumations is noteworthy as it demonstrates that the Late Iron Age tradition of burial by crouched inhumation persisted into the 2nd century AD. Several of the burials were accompanied by grave goods, and one of the males suffered from a very rare form of dwarfism to his forearms, a condition that would have been obvious to his contemporaries. The settlement continued in use until the late 3rd or early 4th century, although the trackway ditches continued to accumulate material into the later 4th century. The trackway and enclosures appear to have survived as visible earthworks into the medieval period as their orientation influenced the alignment of medieval field systems. ACKNO~EDGEMENTS The evaluation and excavation were commissioned by Arlington Securities plc via their agents MacGregor Smith and main contractor Kier Group. The geophysical survey of the road corridor was undertaken by Stratascan. The geophysical survey of the neighbouring area by GSB, and subsequent evaluation by Cotswold Archaeology in 2000, were commissioned by CPM on behalf of Bryant Homes. We are grateful to GSB for allowing us to reproduce their findings in this report. Thanks are due to Michael Smith ( MacGregor Smith), Alasdair Higgs (Kier Group), Matthew Watkins (Arlington Securities) and Royston Clark (CPM) for their assistance and support. The interest and useful suggestions of Charles Parry of Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Section, who monitored the project on behalf of Tewkesbury Borough Council, were also appreciated. The evaluation and excavation in advance of the road were directed in the field by Clifford Bateman, assisted by Mark Brett, and were managed by Mark Leah. The stratigraphic account was written by Alan Thomas, assisted by Clifford Bateman, and managed in turn by Mark Leah and Neil Holbrook. The evaluation in 2000 was directed by Alan Thomas and managed by Neil Holbrook. We are grateful to all the staff who worked on the project, and to all the individuals who have contributed to this report. Jane Timby thanks Dr Alan Vince for undertaking the petrological analysis of the prehistoric sherd. The thin-section analysis was prepared by Paul Hands, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Birmingham, and the ICPS analysis was carried out by Dr N. Walsh, Department of Geology, Royal Holloway College, Egham. The illustrations were produced by Peter Moo re. Earlier drafts were read by Tim Darvill and Richard Reece and the authors are grateful for their comments. The finds and archive will be deposited with Gloucester City Museum under accession number GLRCM 1998/32. 2 EXCAVATIONS AT HUCCL ECOTE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE INTRODUCTION In 199 6, planning permission was granted by Tewkesbury Borough Council for a link road between the Brockworth bypass and the former Gloucester Trading Estate which was in the process of being developed as a business park. A condition attached to the permission stated that a programme of archaeological fieldwork was required prior to the commencement of construction as the road lay in an area of archaeological potential, approximately 5.5km east of Gloucester and a little to the north of Ermin Street, the major Roman road to Cirencester and beyond (Fig. 1). A Roman settlement has been excavated at Brockworth, 700m east of the site (Rawes 1981 ), and Hucclecote Roman villa lies 650m to the west, close to the Horsbere Brook (Clifford 1933 and 1961). Archaeological fieldwork undertaken within the immediate vicinity of the villa revealed further Romano-British buildings, a corn dryer and a complex system of enclosures (Parry 1994; Parry and Cook 1995; Sermon 1997). It was conceivable that these agricultural features might extend into the road corridor. The potential was further highlighted in 1998 by a gradiometer survey on either side of the road in connection with a different development, which revealed a previously unknown settlement complex of putative Iron Age or Romano-British date (GSB 1998; Fig. 2). A brief for archaeological evaluation of the link road corridor was prepared by the Senior Archaeological Officer of Gloucestershire County Council and Cotswold Archaeological Trust (CAT; now Cotswold Archaeology (CA)) was commissioned by Arlington Securities plc to undertake the project. The first stage of the project consisted of a magneto meter survey over the proposed road corridor. This established the presence of enclosure and boundary ditches and other discrete anomalies. A programme of trial trenching, consisting of sixteen 30m-long trenches (a 2% sample of the application area), followed to investigate these features. This established the presence of a Romano-British settlement linked to Ermin Street by a ditched trackway (Bateman 1998). In response to the evaluation results a project design to excavate the route of the road was issued by CAT and approved by Tewkesbury Borough Council acting upon the advice of Gloucestershire County Council. As part of this design it was agreed that topsoil stripping should be undertaken only within the area designated for the road cutting with the roadside embankments being formed directly upon intact topsoil horizons, allowing the in situ preservation of archaeological deposits beneath. The topsoil and subsoil along the route of the road cutting were mechanically stripped under archaeological supervision. In addition, where the evaluation had identified significant archaeological survival, the fill of medieval