6 Late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman Settlements and Landscapes by Alison Deegan
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6 Late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman settlements and landscapes by Alison Deegan Late Bronze Age and Early Iron are not enclosed or associated with more Age settlement and boundaries substantial ditches, and so unenclosed settlement is probably under-represented in Although numerous, the monuments of the the aerial photographic record for the county. Middle Bronze Age and earlier, discussed in The excavation record for Late Bronze the previous chapters, represent a very small Age and Early Iron Age open settlement in proportion of the cropmarked and soilmark Northamptonshire is slim, but does indicate features mapped by the project. The considerable diversity. The site at Great majority of cropmarks and soilmarks, and a Oakley consisted of just two huts or shelters of handful of surviving earthworks, are probable Early Iron Age date, which were probably the remains of settlements dating possibly associated with nearby iron smelting from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman (Jackson 1982). In contrast, Early and Middle period. However, as most are undated, this Iron Age open settlements at Crick developed evidence may include a proportion of so far into extensive and long-lived sites: Long Dole unrecognised earlier or later features. and Crick Covert were subsequently enclosed, After the increasingly prolific monument but the settlement at the Lodge remained building of the Neolithic and Early to unenclosed into the Late Iron Age (Chapman Middle Bronze Age, the Late Bronze Age 1995). On Rainsborough Hill, Newbottle, appears to signal a return to relatively low sparse remains of an open settlement were levels of archaeological visibility, from the found on the site of a later hillfort (Avery et al air as well as on the ground. Ritual or 1967). None of these examples of Early Iron funereal landscapes, which dominate our Age open settlement, or others excavated at knowledge of earlier periods, are known in Weekley Hall Wood and Wilby Way, had been the Middle and Late Bronze Age only from recorded from the air. the chance discovery of a few cremation Almost all of the round houses identified cemeteries (Chapman 1999, 7). As with the by the project are represented by circular or earlier periods, Late Bronze Age and Early sub-circular gullies, and very few post- Iron Age settlement evidence is sparse, defined structures have been identified relatively ephemeral and, at favoured sites, where gullies are not also present. Based on often overwhelmed by the more abundant the excavated evidence, Jackson suggested cropmarks of later activity. Nevertheless it is that the gullied form, although possibly possible that some elements of Late Bronze influenced by geological conditions, was Age and Early Iron Age landscapes can be ‘rarely found before the Middle Iron Age’ found among the wealth apparently later (1979b, 14). If Jackson is correct, then the cropmarks recorded in the project. Early Iron Age house is largely unrepresented in the air photographic record Open settlement for the county and, while some of the many Middle to Late Iron Age open settlements The project has generated a significant, had earlier origins, it is probably a very although undoubtedly very incomplete, incomplete record of Late Bronze Age and record of later prehistoric open settlement in Early Iron Age open settlement as a whole. Northamptonshire. This contrasts with the experience of other Midlands NMP projects, Late Bronze Age and Early Iron which have reported an absence of any air Age hillforts photo evidence of unenclosed round houses (Winton 1998, 53; Deegan 1999, 41). The earliest defended sites are the small, Late During reconnaissance it can be very difficult Bronze Age ringwork at Thrapston, which to detect ephemeral settlement remains that covers less than 1ha, and the large, undated, 81 MAPPING ANCIENT LANDSCAPES IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE contour fort at Borough Hill, Daventry, that runs along the valley for more than 2km which encloses some 52ha (Jackson 1996–7, (Fig 6.1), parallel to, and approximately 152; Hull 2001). The small, sub-rectangular, 550m south east of a tributary of the Nene, defended enclosure at Thenford may also be together with traces of a second parallel early, as may the initial defences at Hunsbury alignment 230m farther south-east, at the and Rainsborough, Arbury Camp (also edge of the valley floor. A series of shorter known as Arbury Banks) at Chipping boundaries traverse the valley floor, from its Warden, and Arbury Hill, Badby (Jackson edge to the tributary, intersecting the main 1993–4, 16–20; Kidd 1999, 20). RCHME pit alignment at right angles. Together these dismissed the latter as a natural feature, but divide the valley floor into relatively regular the archaeological interpretation was recently rectangular blocks, suggesting a significant revived by Kidd (RCHME 1981, 8–9; Kidd element of planning. There are other pit 1999, 20). Kidd also suggested that the large, alignments that run diagonally across the undated curvilinear enclosure on Warden orientation of the main alignment, which Hill, Chipping Warden, was an Iron Age may relate to an earlier and abandoned hillfort (1999, 20. Field-walking in this area phase of land division, as they are not has not retrieved any Iron Age material but a respected by the later settlement enclosures. substantial Neolithic flint scatter was Pit alignments occur in many other parts recovered from a neighbouring field (D Hall of the county (see Panel 1 and Fig 6.2). pers comm.). It is suggested here that the Some of these pit alignments are arranged in enclosure was built in the Neolithic, but the coherent rectilinear systems, often associated trackway or boundary that skirts the inside of with single and double-ditched boundaries, the enclosure is probably of later date (see which are similar to the orderly land division Chapter 4, Fig 4.2: 5). seen at Wollaston. The most extensive and coherent examples are in the south-west of Land boundaries and the county, at Newbottle (Fig 6.3); to the communications north of Northampton, in the parishes of Harlestone, Church Brampton and Chapel The earliest known ditched land divisions Brampton, and near by in Pitsford, Moulton come from excavations on the floor of the and Boughton (Figs 6.4 and 6.5); Stowe- Nene Valley. At Grendon a small Nine-Churches (Fig 6.6) and at Ketton in arrangement of ditches may have predated a Rutland (Fig 6.7). Inevitably the cropmarks double-ditched ring ditch of probable disappear as they cross onto the less Bronze Age date, and at Stanwick and permeable geologies, and, as the geology of Raunds the 2nd-millenium stock-control the county can change significantly over gullies, ditches and trackways appear to have short distances, most of our evidence for been planned with reference to the existing these landscapes is regrettably disjointed. Bronze Age monuments (Jackson 1997, 5; However, the distribution of long lengths of Healy et al 2007, 191–6). At Wollaston, single pit alignments in between these extensive open-area investigations have fragmentary arrangement hints that the unravelled the development of land division landscapes defined by pit alignments were defined by pit alignments, and ditches and far more extensive and represent a dramatic farmsteads, which were first identified phase of land division in late Bronze Age through aerial reconnaissance (Meadows and/or Early Iron Age Northamptonshire 1995, 44). Here the valley floor appears (see Fig 6.2). to have been cleared of woodland during This phase of landscape development the Bronze Age, then maintained as extended into some, but probably not all, Fig 6.1 (opposite) open grassland, and ultimately divided up areas of poorer agricultural land on the less Schematised and simplified into large rectangular blocks of land. permeable geologies. Evidence for pit overview of the air photo, The earliest boundaries were demarcated alignments is absent from the boulder-clay- geophysical survey and by pit alignments, many of which were capped plateaux of Rockingham Forest and excavation evidence of the subsequently re-defined by ditches. This the Nene–Ouse watershed. Though ancient landscapes at framework persisted through the Iron Age, cropmarks do show surprisingly well on the Wollaston (geophysical when small, enclosed farmsteads were built latter, experience, particularly from survey and excavation at the corners of the land parcels; some of reconnaissance, would suggest that the evidence reproduced with the these settlements, or their successors, were definition of the cropmarks there is kind permission of North- still occupied in the Roman period. generally insufficient to distinguish chains of amptonshire Archaeology) The most striking feature, known from pits from continuous ditches. There are pit (scale 1:15 000). excavated and aerial data, is a pit alignment alignments on the clays of the Nene–Avon 82 LATE BRONZE AGE, IRON AGE AND ROMAN SETTLEMENTS AND LANDSCAPES land below 50m OD land 51-60m N 490300, land 61-70m 265200 land 71-80m land 81-90m palaeochannel area of geophysical survey limits of excavation excavated feature River Nene geophysical anomaly cropmark/soilmark feature excavated pit alignment cropmark/soilmark pit alignment 0 150m 300 488000, 490300, 262000 262000 83 MAPPING ANCIENT LANDSCAPES IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 450000, 510000, 305000 305000 Fig 6. 7 land of high and medium cropmark amenability in Northamptonshire parallel or perpendicular arrangement of pit alignments other single pit alignments hillfort with possible LBA-EIA origins N hillfort with possible LBA-EIA origins undated or later hillfort 11 7 10 Fig 6.4 Fig 6.1 Fig 6.5 6 4 Fig 6. 5 8 5 9 3 2 1 Fig 6. 3 0 5km 10 450000, 510000, 230000 230000 Fig 6.2 Fig 6.3 (opposite) Distribution of pit alignments and known and possible hillforts: 1 Newbottle (Rainsborough); Overview of the ancient landscapes 2 Thenford; 3 Chipping Warden (Arbury Banks or Camp); 4 Badby (Arbury Hill); 5 Farthingstone at Newbottle and environs and (Castle Yard); 6 Daventry (Borough Hill); 7 Guilsborough; 8 Northampton (Hunsbury); viewshed from Rainsborough hillfort 9 Hartwell (Egg Rings); 10 Irthlingborough (Crow Hill); 11 Thrapston) (scale 1:400 000).