The Derbyshire Archaeological Journal 125

Excavations were undertaken at a mound at Carsington Pasture, Derbyshire. The mound had been trenched in an unauthorised excavation, for which there were no surviving records, in the 1980s, but was thought to be a `lost' Bronze Age round barrow. The area of the illicit trench was re-excavated and extended to provide a complete section through the mound. The section indicated that the barrow was an earthen bowl barrow that had been constructed over a primary phase turf ring. Human bones were present in the backfill of the previous excavation suggesting that a probable primary inhumation had been disturbed at the time. A secondary undisturbed Bronze Age cremation burial, dated by radiocarbon to c.1700--1500 BC and containing the remains of an adult male, was found below an inverted Biconical Urn near the crest of the mound in the southwest quadrant. Broken bone tweezers were found in the redeposited pyre debris around the urn. The barrow subsequently became incorporated in a field system, which can be traced across Carsington Pasture and which is thought to be of post-Roman date. The mound had later become subsumed within the upcast of adjacent post-medieval lead workings. Includes specialist reports on

Notes on a variety of artefacts, including prehistoric and Romano-British pottery and worked flint and chert (some possibly Mesolithic), collected on Thorpe Cloud and Thorpe Pastures over a number of years prior to 1998; includes a report on

Article presenting the results of the survey of 135 of a total of 143 known or potential rural settlements and field systems thought to date to the Roman period, and surviving as earthworks in the Peak District topographical region west of the River Rother. The specific aims were to identify and survey potential Romano-British settlements or field systems recorded in a range of documentary sources; to categorise their Romano-British date into Definite, Probable, Possible or Unlikely using standard criteria; to record their topographical and geological settings; to identify internal components and organisation, and the presence or absence of surviving associated field systems; to categorise the field systems by character; to assess the condition and actual or potential threats to preservation of each site; and to identify general trends in the nature of Romano-British rural settlement in the region. The paper is intended as a descriptive companion to an interpretative discussion of the region during the Roman period presented in Britannia (forthcoming, 2006).

The author examines and discusses a number of difficult or problematic Derbyshire place-names, with the aim of identifying those with plausible Brittonic etymologies and also of identifying the possibility of archaeological evidence located within a reasonably restricted area.