Oxoniensia 31

Traces of an extensive Iron Age occupation site were observed in a watermain trench along Akeman Street; inhumations, a badly disturbed kiln, a pit and several large potsherds are recorded. The pottery includes both angular and degenerate situla forms, previously attributable to Iron A2, but since a phase predating the angular style in Wessex is now recognised (exemplified at All Cannings Cross and Longbridge Deverill Cow Down, and dated early 6th cent BC), a similar phase can be suggested for the Upper Thames region. One of the Kirtlington pots is well matched in the early phase at Standlake, itself contemporary with Wessex earliest IA. Three others are paralleled at Mount Farm, Dorchester, where it is possible to suggest an early as well as a later phase. The pitted fabric is best paralleled in the BA ceramic of the area, and the fingertipping is less prominent than in Wessex; the Kirtlington forms perhaps represent the indigenous style on which the "angular" forms intruded at the end of the fifth century BC.