WP 029C - Historic Environment Works - South of Stoneleigh ParkEnabling Works North Contract - Report for Archaeological Mitigation
Year: 2022
Type: report
Abstract: The archaeological recording Areas were shaped by the results of previous phases of investigation. The conclusions drawn from these stages, identified six specified areas containing archaeological remains (Areas 1-6). These are outlined in the Project Plan for Archaeological Mitigation13. An additional small mitigation area (Tr 144) was excavated during this phase of works and is also reported here. Prior to intrusive archaeological investigation, each area was metal detected for artefacts. These artefacts were recovered, located and identified. Following on from the metal-detecting survey, parts of area 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 were subjected to test-pitting. The purpose of these test pits was to characterise if agricultural activity had truncated archaeological features or deposits by examining presence, absence, character, distribution and density of archaeological artefacts within the plough-soil. The archaeological features and artefacts suggest sporadic activity in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, and more continuous settlement and agricultural activity from the late Bronze Age, through the Iron Age and into the early Roman period. There is no evidence of activity after this until the post-medieval period. Widespread horizontal truncation by medieval and later agriculture has removed much evidence and thus only deeper-cut features survive at all. Neolithic activity seems to have been limited to Area 5 and does not currently form a coherent picture. The handful of pits containing pottery and lithics suggest either a Neolithic or an Early Bronze Age date. These pits were not clustered together and the circumstances of deposition within them are, at present, unclear. The late Bronze Age activity is focused on Area 3. The palaeochannel - probably representing a former watercourse - would seem to have been the key factor in the location of the Bronze Age activity. It was the focus of a series of troughs, and the burnt mounds which seem to have grown up around them, on opposing sides of the paleochannel. Later features seem to have been cut through the burnt mounds to create watering holes, suggesting on-going and changing use of the area. The evidence for late Bronze Age landscape use was not limited to Area 3. The nature of the pottery in Areas 1 and 2, including the cremation, to the south-west and Area 5 to the north-west suggests the presence of a late Bronze Age settlement in the vicinity. The pit alignments in Area 4 to the west are also likely to be broadly contemporary. The single cremation found in Area 2 during the mitigation joins the two found in the same area during the evaluation phase of these works. The focus for early to middle Iron Age activity was around the multi-ditched rectangular enclosure in Area 1. The distribution of Iron Age pottery suggests, once again, that settlement was widespread. Iron Age pottery was also found in Areas 2, 3, 5 and 6. Areas 5, and to a lesser extent, Area 6 offer the best evidence for in situ Iron Age remains outside of Area 1 in the form of a number of pits. These were some distance to the north of the Area 1 enclosure, and Late Iron Age to Roman activity is characterised by a series of enclosure ditches which seem to relate to agriculture in the form of landscape and stock management. These were identified in Areas 2, 3, 5 and 6. The greater concentration of pottery of this period in Area 2 and the more complex network of ditches suggests this area was the closest to the focus of the settlement. The character of the pottery and finds suggests a modest rural farmstead. Medieval and later archaeology is characterised by plough furrows, large scale linear ditches and land drains, with a scattering of associated finds probably introduced during manuring.
Source: Archaeology Data Service
DOI: 10.5284/1147273
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology (arts and humanities)
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225634145