Oxoniensia 67

A significant concentration of prehistoric activity is located close to the confluence of the Rivers Thames and Thame at Dorchester-on-Thames. The Dorchester monument complex including a cursus monument and a large henge (the `Big Rings') is now largely destroyed. In contrast, the Dyke Hills complex (usually assumed to be a Late Iron Age `oppidum') and the Wittenham Clumps hillfort are largely unexplored. These large monuments exist within a complex distribution of cropmarks on the gravel terraces. Cropmarks are particularly well preserved within the meander of the River Thames between Little Wittenham and Long Wittenham. The paper assesses the potential of Geographical Information Systems as a tool to interpret aspects of the prehistoric landscape within their geographical and archaeological contexts, using multiple layers within the GIS to hold contextual information. A sequence of chronological development is suggested for the cropmark complexes on the gravel terrace north of the Wittenhams. The suggested local, contextual trajectory is compared and contrasted with larger-scale narratives appertaining to the Thames Valley as a whole.

The study explores the fortunes of both the cloth industry and the cloth trade and assesses their contribution to the economy of the town. The scale and impact of the production and marketing of cloth is examined through analysis of population growth, occupational structure and inventory valuations. Probate sources are utilised to explore the organisation and processes of manufacture and the structure of the cloth trade. A number of factors influenced the pattern of economic development in Abingdon and it faced severe political and economic problems during the middle decades of the sixteenth century, but survived and enjoyed new prosperity.

Recent excavations are used as the basis of a first synthesis of evidence for the origins of the medieval town. The alluvial channel of the River Bure must always have been an important influence on settlement. Despite the ceaster name there is still no sign of any substantial Roman building, though there was early Anglo-Saxon settlement. The parish church can be recognised as an Anglo-Saxon minster; the recent excavations encountered a probable enclosure behind the church, and a cemetery just outside this enclosure which may also have been mid to late Anglo-Saxon. The eleventh-century halls found on the east bank seem likely to represent a `proto-town' which was overlain by the existing twelfth- or thirteenth-century planned town.

early Saxon evidence

early Saxon evidence

late Saxon evidence

medieval evidence

A programme of archaeological investigations by the Oxford Archaeological Unit between 1997 and 2000 has revealed evidence of nearly a thousand years of activity on the site. Excavations in 1999 revealed eleventh-century Saxon buildings constructed of timber in an area prone to destruction by fire, as well as one of the largest assemblages of Late Saxon pottery recovered from work in Oxford, and also pottery associated with the use of the college Kitchen. Environmental samples suggested that this was an area for grain storage in the Late Saxon period. Metalwork debris from the earliest horizons suggests that small-scale metalworking also occurred during this period. Thereafter the site appears to have been a waste-ground for c. 300 years. The college buildings were constructed between 1427 and 1437. The foundations of the Great Hall, Buttery, and Kitchen were revealed. Within the Kitchen the postholes of the scaffold erected during the building work in 1437 were found. The appearance of the original fireplaces in the Kitchen was recorded, and a fifteenth-century brick oven was found behind the modern plaster adjacent to the north fireplace. In addition, the Kitchen was equipped with a massive stone-built well, sunk over 7m. into the natural gravel. The foundations of a passage building that linked the Kitchen and the Buttery were also excavated and the above-ground evidence was investigated and recorded. The floor of the Buttery was dated by dendrochronology. Includes:

Excavations revealed traces of a possible medieval timber hall, with a complex of associated rubbish pits, dating from the late-eleventh through the thirteenth century, when the site was abandoned and a soil formed. Later dumped deposits, possibly floors or levelling layers, date to the post-medieval period. The range of artefacts and ecofacts recovered allows the reconstruction of a fairly detailed picture of medieval activity on the site, although little structural detail can be supplied. Iron smithing was certainly represented, although no smithing features were located. Waste products indicate the local rearing and butchery of animals (mainly cattle) for meat and the processing of arable crops. Includes:

An evaluation and subsequent excavation led to the discovery of a small number of medieval deposits below post-medieval features and cellars. A substantial dump of later eighteenth-century material in one of these cellars may represent the complete clear-out of crockery from a nearby household. This is one of the largest and most complete assemblages of Staffordshire white salt-glazed stoneware from the city. A survey of the limestone rubble wall on the north side of 8 Cornmarket Street (rear of 3--7 Market Street) showed several undated phases of construction. Includes:

Description of an ornamented and engraved Romano-British type 1B buckle-plate; the authors speculate from the late date and the peacock and vine imagery that it may have been Christian.