| ISSN 1357-4442 | Editor: Simon Denison |
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| NEWS |
Remarkable new evidence for the antiquity of some English territorial boundaries has come to light on the Wiltshire-Gloucestershire border, with the discovery that the boundary between the two parishes of Ashton Keynes and Somerford Keynes may date back at least 3,000 years to the late Bronze Age.
Excavations this summer, carried out by the Oxford Archaeological Unit in advance of gravel extraction, found a double line of Bronze Age pits that precisely mirrors the parish boundary for a distance of at least 200 yards. The county border now also follows the same line, as a result of boundary changes in recent years.
Similar double lines of Bronze Age pits have been found elsewhere in England - in Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire - and have been interpreted there as territorial boundaries. This summer's excavation found that Roman fields and property boundaries respected the line of pits, suggesting that the boundary was observed in that period, while the present parish boundary is known to date at least from Domesday Book in 1086, and probably from mid-late Saxon times. The suggestion of unbroken continuity is therefore strong.
According to excavation director Gill Hey, the pits held no structural features and were simply open, circular pits about two feet deep in the Bronze Age, suggesting a symbolic rather than defensive boundary. The line may have been reinforced, however, by a hedge which has left no archaeological traces. Environmental evidence indicates that the surrounding landscape was grazed but not cultivated, without much human settlement, reinforcing the sense of a boundary area.
A single burial was found close to the pits, and is thought to date from the same period. It was of a woman, whose legs had been broken to squeeze her into a small grave. Burials of this date are not uncommon in boundary areas, and may have been placed to invest the border with symbolic power. There is no evidence for a ditch encircling the burial, but it may originally have been covered by a mound.
The pits have been broadly dated by stratigraphy. Some of the pits cut through earlier middle Bronze Age pits, which are datable by pottery; while small fragments of middle Iron Age pottery were found in the upper layers of pit-fill, suggesting a date for the digging of the pits roughly between the two.
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Three roughly-buried skeletons that
may represent the victims of a 9th
century Viking raid have been
found during this season's excavations at
the defended settlement of Llanbedrgoch
on Anglesey (see BA, December 1998).
They join two further skeletons from the
same burial group that were found last
year.
The five bodies - three adults and two
infants - were dumped in a shallow grave
in the upper fill of the ditch outside the
defensive wall, and were covered by large
stones. All lay at different angles. One was
pushed up against the side of the grave;
another lay on top of an infant with its
feet by the infant's chin, and seems to
have been buried with its hands tied
behind its back. The sex of the adults is
not clear.
What is clear, according to excavation
director Mark Redknap of the National
Museum of Wales, is that the bodies -
dated in one case by radiocarbon to between 770-970 - were `not buried by their
nearest and dearest'. Although disease cannot yet be ruled out as the cause of death,
followed by hasty burial to avoid contagion, a violent death is thought more
likely. Viking raids in North Wales began
in the 850s.
The presence of infants suggests that the
bodies belonged to inhabitants of the
settlement rather than an attacking party.
The rough burial implies they were interred by the enemy, and the event
possibly marks a temporary takeover of
the site by Viking raiders. According to
Dr Redknap, it was not uncommon for
Vikings to live off the land for a short
period following a raid, before taking once
again to the sea.
If the settlement's initial contact with
the Vikings was violent, friendler trading
contacts soon developed. Evidence from
earlier years' excavations has shown an
increase in Viking-style metalwork and
other artefacts at the site during the 10th
century.
The adult skeletons seem to be aged
about 25-35. None had been decapitated,
or had other cut-marks to the bone. `But if
their throats had been cut, it wouldn't
mark the skeleton,' Dr Redknap said.
Further research at Llanbedrgoch will
now focus on the bodies, to try and establish cause of death, sex, age, family
relationships and medical condition. Plans
are afoot to reconstruct one face from the
skull.
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A small Iron Age settlement has been
found preserved under peat in the
Gwent Levels, on the South Wales
coast. It consists of three timber buildings,
lying in an area that was damp and boggy
for much of the year during the Iron Age.
They are thought to represent the temporary homes of cattle farmers using the
Levels for summer pasture.
The buildings, at Barnard's Farm between Newport and Chepstow, contain
evidence of domestic occupation, such as
datable pottery and quernstones. Outside,
the hoof-prints of Iron Age cattle survive
in the surrounding ditch. Cattle appear to
have been standing by the edge of the ditch
and sinking in. The prints were preserved
when they were later filled in by estuarine
silts.
The site, less than two miles inland, lies
close to a former tidal creek which silted up
after the Roman period. Nearby, a near-complete Romano-British oak boat,
dating from the 3rd century, was excavated in 1993 (see BAN, March 1994). A
handful of similar timber buildings have
been found since the early 1990s on the
Levels foreshore.
The buildings, about 5 metres long by
3.5 metres wide, were rectangular with
rounded corners. Their walls consisted of
rows of stakes driven into the peat, with
any gaps filled in by wickerwork. Roofs
were supported by one or two central
timber posts. The bases of the timbers
and stakes survive, some to a length of
1.5 metres, along with some brushwood
flooring.
According to Martin Locock of the
Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust,
the occupiers probably moved inland
when water-levels rose in the autumn -
possibly to Wilcrick Hill hillfort which
overlooks the site. Another Iron Age settlement thought to have been occupied only
during the summer months was excavated
last year in Northamptonshire (see BA, February).
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Two small, charred lumps of bread
over 5,000 years old have been found at
Yarnton near Oxford. The bread was
possibly burnt in a prehistoric cooking
accident and discarded as inedible, or deliberately burnt as an offering to the gods.
Thought to be the oldest examples of
bread known in Britain, the lumps contain
a number of coarsely ground grains, of
which only barley can be firmly identified.
Tiny samples produced radiocarbon dates
of between 3620-3350BC. The bread
was found by the Oxford Archaeological
Unit in a pit that also contained a large
flint knife and other tools, with over 200
flint flakes, fragments of pottery and
charred hazelnuts.
The Roman lady found in a lead coffin at
Spitalfields, London, earlier this year may have
come from Spain, according to Bryan Sykes, a
geneticist at Oxford University. DNA extracted
from one of her molars was compared against a
database of 11,000 people from around the
world, producing an exact match with someone
from Spain.
Wat's Dyke,a 40 mile earthwork
which runs parallel to Offa's Dyke in the
Welsh Marches, has been dated to the 5th
century. The dyke was assumed to be a
near-contemporary predecessor of Offa's
Dyke, built by the 8th century Mercian
king. But excavations at Maes-y-Clawdd
near Oswestry by Shropshire's archaeological service have uncovered a small fire
site, eroded shards of Romano-British pottery and quantities of charcoal, radiocarbon
dated to between AD411-561. The discovery appears to link the dyke with the
post-Roman kingdom which centred on
Wroxeter.
Two other important Saxon discoveries have
been made over recent months. Parts of a timber
pile-and-plank bridge or causeway were found in
Norwich, thought to date from the 10th century.
They were uncovered during work on the city's
drains. Meanwhile, a mid-late Saxon mutton
bone was found in London inscribed with two
Anglo-Saxon runic signatures - Tatbehrt and
Dric. This rare find implies that some ordinary
folk living in a farming community outside
Lundenwic could read and write.
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© Council for British Archaeology, 1999
`Victims of a Viking raid' on Anglesey
Iron Age homes used for summer grazing
Neolithic bread
Dyke redated