SUMMARY

Two adjacent excavations on the southern outskirts of Banbury recorded an extensive landscape of prehistoric features. Neolithic evidence, some of it probably representing activities associated with the adjacent Wykham Farm causewayed enclosure, included a pit and a tree-throw hole that contained sherds of early Neolithic Plain Bowl pottery, a pair of pits with middle Neolithic Mortlake Ware, and a feature that produced a late Neolithic radiocarbon date and is likely to represent a cremation burial or a pair of such features. A group of three unurned cremation burials was attributed to the middle Bronze Age on the basis of radiocarbon dates from two of them, and an isolated inhumation burial was radiocarbon dated to the early Iron Age (late sixth or fifth century cal BC). No other features or artefacts from either of these periods was found, suggesting that the burials were located away from areas of settlement. Following an apparent hiatus of several centuries, there was a burst of settlement and agricultural activity that extended from the first century BC to the end of the first century AD. Two discrete enclosures may represent successive late Iron Age settlements, and a field system continued into the early Roman period, when a third enclosure, possibly for livestock, was constructed beside it. The features form part of an extensive though short-lived episode of occupation, and it is possible that the Iron Age enclosures represent the pastoral component of a farmstead with a domestic and arable focus represented by a complex of enclosures that has been separately excavated in the fields adjacent to the east.

SUMMARY

Excavation at the edge of a dense cropmark complex south of Eynsham uncovered features spanning the Neolithic to the medieval period. The cropmarks probably represent a monument complex that developed around the adjacent Eynsham causewayed enclosure, and the three earliest pits, associated with Decorated Bowl pottery (c.3770–3245 BC), may have been contemporary with the construction and use of the enclosure. Eight middle Neolithic pits associated with Peterborough Ware (mid-fourth millennium to early third millennium BC) were excavated. One contained the burial of a woman, accompanied by an oyster shell pendant and a whelk shell, both exotic items this far from the coast. The burial produced a radiocarbon date of 3340–3030 cal BC. Three pits dating from the earliest Iron Age, one possibly a waterhole, represent rare evidence for settlement of this period, and limited Roman activity was restricted to pits that were probably dug for gravel extraction. Anglo-Saxon occupation was represented by a sunken-featured building, and medieval evidence comprised further gravel pits, field boundaries and plough furrows.

SUMMARY

Excavations to the north-east of Wantage (formerly Berks.) uncovered an Iron Age settlement that was established in the eighth or seventh century BC. Eleven roundhouses, variously defined by postholes and penannular ditches, dated to the earliest or early Iron Age. A total of fifteen roundhouses defined by penannular ditches dated to the middle Iron Age, alongside further settlement features. Activity appears to have diminished during the late Iron Age before the site was significantly reorganised early in the Roman period when two rectilinear enclosures and minor subsidiary enclosures were established. These enclosures were recut multiple times throughout the following centuries and the organisation of the site remained remarkably consistent until its abandonment at the end of the fourth century AD. Corndryers dating to the middle and late Roman periods suggest a focus on cereal processing. One early Anglo-Saxon sunken-featured building was discovered, probably dating to the sixth or seventh century AD. The site was cultivated in the later medieval period, signified by the presence of numerous furrows, and a trackway of late fifteenth- to sixteenth-century date was found to extend southwards towards Wantage.