Oxoniensia

The main evidence for civilian archery in medieval England is documentary, but this can be supplemented by the physical evidence of arrowheads. Although these are found catalogued and described in most large collections of artefacts in England, their contribution to an account of how archery was practised by English people in the Middle Ages is rarely analysed. This article examines the medieval arrowheads held by the Oxfordshire County Museums Service to see what can be learnt about the practice of archery in the county. The practical experience of modern archers using the traditional English longbow is brought to bear on the discussion. A concluding section notes that the study has provided evidence of two places where archery was practised by archers of greater physical prowess than was to be found in the county's population at large (Barentin's Manor and Woodstock), and that men did not keep bows comparable to the war bows of the period in their homes as a matter of course. The types of head found suggest that archery was more practised in the 14th and 15th centuries than at other times. However, it was difficult to draw any conclusion about how widespread archery skills were among the population of Oxfordshire. Au/LD

Excavation by Northamptonshire Archaeology in advance of a new industrial estate at Bicester Park, on the outskirts of Bicester, examined part of a Roman rural settlement lying just over 3km north-east of the small Roman town of Alchester. The settlement may have been established with respect to a linear land boundary of late Iron Age/early Roman origin and was in use from the later first century AD to the late third to early fourth centuries AD. It was defined by a rectilinear ditch system that was heavily truncated but had probably formed a series of rectangular enclosures and sub-enclosures, with the northern area separated from a domestic area to the south by a trackway. The nature of features in the domestic area suggests that it lay at the margin of a more extensive domestic focus lying largely beyond the excavated area. Finds were generally sparse, although a small amount of iron slag was suggestive of small-scale secondary smithing. In contrast to the bulk of the material evidence, which indicates that this was a rural settlement of relatively low status, part of a wooden writing tablet came from a well.

An evaluation carried out by Oxford Archaeology at the Morris Motors Sports and Social Club, Barracks Lane, Oxford, in advance of development, revealed evidence for quarries dug into a thin layer of limestone capping the sand bedrock. Two irregular cuts contained fragments of Iron Age pottery and animal bone. A second group of four intercutting cuts contained three sherds of medieval pottery which suggested an eleventh-century date for the backfilling of the quarries. The Iron Age finds suggest that a settlement of this date may lie in the vicinity. The significance of the medieval quarrying is uncertain '“ the enclosure award and early Ordnance Survey maps show that quarries and limekilns existed in the Temple Cowley area during the mid- to late nineteenth century, and it is possible that this activity had its origins in the medieval period. LD