Surrey Archaeological Collections
Surrey Archaeological Society, 2003. (updated 2023) https://doi.org/10.5284/1000221. How to cite using this DOI
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- ADS Collection: 379
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1000221
- How to cite using this DOI
SURREY ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS
Prehistoric and Roman settlement in Reigate Road, Ewell: fieldwork conducted by Tom K Walls 1945-1952
The results of episodic fieldwork conducted just over 50 years ago on a dip-slope spur of North Downs chalk 2km south-south-east of Ewell are described. The spur had witnessed intermittent activity in the Mesolithic and Neolithic/Bronze Age periods, which intensified from the middle of the first millennium BC and culminated in the establishment of a farming settlement occupied in the decades either side of the Roman conquest. Features excavated included a number of pits and deeper shafts, which produced a wide range of finds. Those from three substantial chalk-cut storage pits of classic form and profile are considered in detail, and comprise an assemblage of late pre-Roman Iron Age/Roman Iron Age pottery incorporating sherds of East Sussex Grog-tempered ware, fragments of greensand rotary querns, items traditionally associated with weaving including triangular clay loomweights, chalk spindlewhorls and a bone gouge, as well as a single fragment of briquetage. Other notable finds placed in and over the pits include a series of special deposits in the form of a human infant and parts of several articulated and semi-articulated animal carcasses, together with a late 1st or early 2nd century urned cremation burial of a young man accompanied by nine inscribed bone gaming counters and a tenth made of pottery. Graffiti lightly scratched on the plain reverses of six of the bone counters appear to denote ownership by one `Remusâ, a personal name attested in Gaul. A second, separate cremation comprised bones of sheep/goat placed in a complete greyware jar. Later Roman activity is attested by the presence of quantities of mainly unstratified pottery, building material and small finds of iron and copper alloy including a 2nd century plate brooch of shoe-sole form and a small quantity of 3rd and 4th century coins. The Looe site is entry no 1101 in the Surrey SMR.
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