Northamptonshire Archaeology 27

Evaluation of c.3 hectares of land in Daventry town centre in July 1994 identified widespread buried deposits of both Medieval and potentially early-middle Saxon date adjacent to St. John's Square, Daventry. Subsequent investigation has shown that the immediate area was occupied in the 6th century AD and that after a period of abandonment was reoccupied in the 10th century. Occupation continued with changes of emphasis and layout until the present day although it waned from the 14th century. In the 6th century the site, divided by a large east-west aligned ditch, was used for dumping rubbish from a nearby settlement which probably lay just to the south on higher ground. In the late Saxon period, occupation comprised a ditched enclosure around at least one timber building. Nearby were north-south aligned ditches which may represent a fluid boundary. Re-planned in the 12th century, occupation shifted to the foot of the natural slope, the north edge of the site, where a 3-bay building was constructed. By the mid-13th century this had been abandoned and the emphasis shifted to a new enclosure on higher ground to the south-west, where occupation persisted, initially in the form of ditched circular building of unknown function. Always marginal to the town, the site seems to have been associated with large-scale processing of crops from the 10th to the 12th centuries, probably dealing with produce from an increasing range of soil types and qualities which reflects the pressures placed on arable production by early medieval society. There was little artefactual evidence to indicate that status of those who may have lived on or close to the site.

Archaeological evaluation of an area within the hillfort at Borough Hill Daventry, revealed evidence of late Bronze Age and early Iron Age activity as well as a small amount of late Iron Age or Roman pottery. Notable amongst the finds from this excavation was a socketed axe which probably dates from the late Bronze Age, Ewart Park Phase.

Summaries of fieldwork carried out in Northamptonshire during 1996-97