Data copyright © High Speed Two Ltd. unless otherwise stated
This work is licensed under a The Open Government Licence (OGL).
High Speed Two Ltd.
2 Snowhill
Queensway
Birmingham
B4 6GA
United Kingdom
Tel: 08081 434 434
This collection comprises images, site records, reports, GIS data, and Harris matrices for fieldwalking and construction integrated recording at Field 60, Hall Farm, Radstone, West Northamptonshire. This work was undertaken by Archaeological Research Services Ltd between August 2021 and May 2022 and forms part of the High Speed 2 (HS2) Phase 1 rail project.
Area C30063, Hall Farm, was an important site where pits, stakeholes, and postholes belonging to lightly built structures were found below a truncated palaeosol that also had pits cut into it from above and was sealed below colluvium. Datable material was recovered from several of these features and the palaeosol. At the lowest part of the site, a circular group of postholes and an associated pit with ash debris was possibly the highly truncated remains of a roundhouse. This was situated immediately below the colluvium. The site has significant potential to inform on Late Glacial through Early-Mid Holocene human activity and landscape change.
A total of 1,154 pieces were defined as likely lithic artefacts, including 614 pieces of debitage, 52 cores and 488 tools. Only two pieces are strictly diagnostic: a polished flint axe head (Small Find 1109) from Pit [46] and a hand axe (Small Find 2261) from the glacial subsoil (3). A further possible hand axe conforms to the same characteristics. The polished axe head is likely to be Early Neolithic, whereas the other two objects probably date to the Lower Palaeolithic.
The archive forms part of the archaeological investigative work undertaken ahead of the construction of the HS2. All of the files contained within the archive are suitable for reuse as they are in standard, easily accessible formats, in line with the FAIR principles. The archive may be looked at in conjunction with other archives to further add depth and context to the works (including the evaluation trenching phase of works on this site). All specialist reporting was taken to assessment stage, therefore there is potential for further analysis.