Site Data from an Archaeological Evaluation at Katherine Warington School, Lower Luton Road, Harpenden 2018
Cotswold Archaeology, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5284/1093823. How to cite using this DOI
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Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 4536
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1093823
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
This collection comprises site data (images, gis and report) from an archaeological excavation, with additional watching briefs, undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology in October and November 2018, January, and March 2019 at the request of CgMs on behalf of Kier Construction at Katherine Warington School, Lower Luton Road, Harpenden. Four separate areas of strip, map and sample were excavated on-site, targeted on features identified in a preceding field evaluation, including a small number of linear features and prehistoric pits identified in the south-western portion of the site.
The excavation identified two phases of archaeological activity, comprising the prehistoric period and the medieval/postmedieval period. Archaeological features included four shallow gullies/hedgerows running along north-west to south-east alignments. A small number of steep-sided prehistoric pits, the majority of which were sparsely grouped together at the western edge of Area D with two separate, singular pits, one of which was located close the south-eastern boundary of the site and the other situated further to the west on the western side of the 20th century quarry pits, were also identified during the excavation. The artefact assemblages from the excavation were consistent with the results of the previous evaluation, with a small amount of worked flints recovered mostly from Area D, including a flint blade from one of the pits on the western part of Area D, and a small amount prehistoric pottery, and Romano-British pottery. Plant macrofossils recovered from samples indicate that processing of cereals, including oats, spelt and emmer wheat and barley, within the site, consistent with Iron Age/Romano British activity. Small amounts of residual worked flint, ranging in date from the Mesolithic through to the Bronze Age, as well as Iron Age pottery, suggested that the wider landscape was settled in the prehistoric period.
