Oxoniensia 66

Nineteen sites, including one just in Berkshire, are summarised and discussed in terms of their settlement associations, layout and date and the characteristics of the graves and their contents. Patterns of evidence indicative of `urban' and `rural' associations are identified and possible indications of relative settlement and individual status are also discussed. The human remains are not examined in detail but age and gender patterns are considered briefly. The cemetery evidence is then reviewed in terms of the development of regional funerary practice from the Iron Age through to the Christian period.

The author argues that, although the hearth tax of the 1660s is frequently used to study social structure, other records from the period can also be used to refine or correct the impression given by them. The article uses manor court books and rentals of the 1650s and 1670s from manors in the parish of Shrivenham to identify the landed basis on which the social status of local willmakers rested, and to suggest that men who do not appear in the probate records but had similar amounts of land should be accorded similar status. This allows a rank to be given to more individuals and a more accurate assessment to be made of the make-up of this late-seventeenth-century rural community.

the features found are described

fifteen sherds were recovered

a macehead fragment, a possible stone axe fragment, and a whetstone

six radiocarbon measurements gave calibrated dates of BC 1380--910

Archaeological investigations produced evidence for the local environment from the post-glacial period through to the prehistoric. Evidence for Mesolithic activity on the site was obtained from lithics in later features. Similarly Neolithic, Early Bronze Age, and Mid-Late Bronze Age activity is represented by residual sherds and flints. A pit containing Beaker pottery was located along with three pits of the Iron Age including one of the later Middle Iron Age. Sherds of Early Iron Age pottery were also present. Roman pottery was present on the site both in the form of a general scatter thought to represent manuring of fields and by deliberate selection and importation onto the site by Anglo-Saxons. A settlement of the Anglo-Saxon period was represented by the presence of sunken featured buildings while a medieval ?farmstead had been destroyed by nineteenth-century quarrying for limestone. Includes specialist reports on

a total of sixty-five sherds from at least seven Beakers were found

some 111 sherds were recovered, a significant proportion from specific Anglo-Saxon features

some 242 handmade and wheel thrown sherds were recovered, dating from the twelfth century AD through to the nineteenth century

remains of an inhumation from a possibly Saxon pit

Archaeological excavation and recording of eleven areas totalling 3.8 ha., located on the northern side of Watchfield on the fringes of a Corallian limestone ridge. Previous excavations to the north of the areas had revealed a small Middle Iron Age enclosed settlement and an Early Saxon cemetery. Three principal areas of archaeological activity were encountered: the southern edge of an Early/Middle Iron Age enclosure; a complex of Late Iron Age/Romano-British enclosure ditches and associated pits; and a small Romano-British cremation cemetery and further enclosures. Includes specialist reports on

two Roman coins were recovered, both dating to the late third or fourth centuries AD

including a blade/let industry of Mesolithic date

cremated and unburnt bone was recovered from nineteen contexts (eleven Romano-British, one Romano-British/Saxon and six Iron Age) in three areas

Iron Age and Romano-British material, including evidence of wheat and barley production and cereal processing

Evaluation and excavation was undertaken within an area of known Romano-British occupation. Excavation revealed a metalled trackway with flanking ditches, plot boundaries and pits datable to the period from the late-first to earlier second century. A thick cultivation horizon accumulated across part of the site during the second and third century, upon which a stone building was constructed after c. AD 270. Only part of the building lay within the excavation area, and it was seemingly contained within a ditched enclosure. The building was comprehensively dismantled and robbed of building materials, and a sherd of sixth- to ninth-century pottery was recovered from one of the robber trenches. The nature of the Roman settlement at Wantage is reviewed in the light of the present and previous discoveries. Includes specialist reports on

a total of 1,497 sherds were recovered, mostly from the Roman period but including a few pieces of prehistoric, Saxon and modern date. Includes

including five copper alloy objects, six lead objects, ninety-five iron nails, fourteen other iron objects, two items of worked bone, and one chalk figurine

two quern fragments plus a number of roof and floor stones

a total of 1,163 fragments were recorded of which 467 were identified, cattle being the most common species

including separate reports on cereal grains, chaff and seeds, and on wood charcoal macro-remains

including cereal grains from wheat, barley and oats

A series of archaeological excavations were carried out at the church in 1999 during internal refurbishment of the church and the formation of foundations for a new entrance building. The investigations revealed new evidence for Saxon occupation on the site in the form of a series of eight inhumation burials within charcoal-lined graves. A small `island' of probable Saxon occupation surface was exposed within the nave of the church while a fragment of tenth-century cross-shaft with carved `knotwork' decoration was recovered from within the masonry of the south nave wall. Little evidence was retrieved for the layout of the early church. However it was established that the fourteenth-century crypt beneath the south aisle was not originally furnished with a third, western bay, the space having formerly been occupied by a lateral stairwell. Evidence for nineteenth-century arrangements was recorded in the form of wall footings, former floor surfaces and a stone-built font base. In addition, a total of forty-eight brick-lined shaft graves and one brick-constructed barrel vault, all of eighteenth- and early- to mid-nineteenth-century date, were exposed within the body of the church. Includes

Description of a struck flint flake and a knapped flint biface.