Gwilym Williams
Archaeologist with 30+ years in the profession, experienced in running projects and reporting in the UK, Sweden and France, in their respective languages.
Member of Post-Medieval Archaeology editorial board.
I have a particular interest in medieval decorated floor tiles as well as early industry, and early modern and modern archaeology as a whole. I also have worked and written extensively about the later Bronze Age and earlier Iron Age of the eastern Atlantic Islands.
Member of Post-Medieval Archaeology editorial board.
I have a particular interest in medieval decorated floor tiles as well as early industry, and early modern and modern archaeology as a whole. I also have worked and written extensively about the later Bronze Age and earlier Iron Age of the eastern Atlantic Islands.
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The watching brief, which commenced in December 2006 at Newington House, Newington, Oxfordshire, revealed remains of a building, metalled surfaces, ditches delimiting plot-boundaries, pits and postholes. The remains of a possible ore-roasting hearth, which never came into use, were also identified. Post-excavation analysis of pits and gullies dating from the 12th century, associated with postholes and a trampled earthen floor, lead to the identification of an early building as a further smithy.
With the support of the then-County Archaeologist, Paul Smith, English Heritage (EH) were contacted and Chris Welch, Inspector of Ancient Monuments, visited the site with Paddy O’Hara, also of EH. Following the site visit EH gave financial support to the excavation of the smithy identified during fieldwork. Extreme weather conditions meant that the site was subject to periods of excavation between January and August 2007, when fieldwork was completed.
Following the completion of fieldwork, contact was made with South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group, which had previously carried out investigations at Newington House in the early to mid 1980s. This work, which had been reported in South Midlands Archaeology at the time, was never published. The archive was lent to JMHS and has been integrated as best possible to the current project providing a fuller picture of the recent work and also enabling some form of publication of SOAG’s project. This work comprised an excavation and recording exercise in addition to an earthwork survey, and test-pittingat the location of the intervention carried out 20 years later by JMHS. A campaign of field-walking carried out at an adjacent field yielded evidence corroborating a 16th-century map held by All Souls, Oxford.
The evaluation had highlighted the potential for in-situ Mesolithic deposits to be present across the site. Unfortunately this did not prove to be the case during the excavation, although the centre of Area 1 was identified as the locus of a large, regionally important, scatter of Mesolithic flintwork.
Evidence points to the site as a major focus for continued activity from the later Bronze Age to Early Iron Age in the area. During this time the landscape was in a state of flux, undergoing almost constant change as it was successively demarcated and divided into areas for habitation, agricultural and ritual practice.
Middle Bronze Age activity was represented by a single structure perhaps on the fringe of a wider settlement close by. This settlement appears to have focused in the area in the later Bronze Age that witnessed structures, pits and cremations dotting an unenclosed landscape.
This situation did not remain for long and the focus of activity appears to be concentrated around a timber built shrine building, with six associated long-house buildings, two of which were notable for the sunken floors associated with them. A possible circular cult-building lay nearby.
It did not survive long as a “religious centre”, the landscape was reorganised in a new vision of an agglomerated field-system of at least 10 enclosures. The associated building appears to have been of an agricultural nature. Within a generation or two this was itself replaced by a oval post-enclosure. It is probable that the settlement focus moved to the north and east at this point in the Late Bronze Age – Early Iron Age. Subsequently, a second field-system comprising at least five fields, which appears to have been laid out at a single moment in time replaced the post-enclosure.
In addition to the prehistoric remains, evidence was also recorded for a medieval croft dating from the 11th to 14th centuries, set in a landscape of unenclosed fields or perhaps utilising earlier boundaries, with new farm buildings being constructed through out this period as the older ones go out of use.
Papers
were contingent, and in many cases among aliens probably more local than national. The social impacts of war in modern-day west Sweden extended beyond the towns directly affected, such as Nya Lödöse and Ny Varberg. The degree to which individuals could act with agency and autonomy was contingent and context-specific. Forced migration and the negotiation of identity are issues that remain relevant today; questions of memory, property, trauma, history, and narratives are still debated by combatants and non-combatants. Many of the issues which both civilians and military, men and women, experienced in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century wars between Sweden and Denmark-Norway are much the same as in more recent times. The social impacts of war in the seventeenth century were no less than those experienced in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
In the immediate post-Conquest period the site was characterised by the laying out of plots or small enclosures, adjacent to a shallow stream. Subsequently during the 12th-century a structure, which in post-excavation appeared to represent a smithy, was erected within one of the enclosures. This post-fast structure was associated with smithing debris, particularly hammerscale. Later, during the 13th century, the post-fast smithy was replaced by a smithy with stone footings, a hearth, an anvil-setting and possibly a bosh. This phase of activity could be tied to the investigations undertaken by South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group in the 1980s.
Blacksmithing rather than iron-production appears to have been the sole function of the buildings. The excavation represents one of the very few examples of medieval smithies excavated in England.
Glass, pottery and ceramic building materials are discussed.
Client report
De arkeologiska förundersökningarna utfördes i samband med nedgrävning av VA-ledning inom fastigheter. Varje delområde undersöktes och återfylldes innan VA-ledning anlades.
Resteröd 57:1 – Fornlämningens östra avgränsning berördes av markarbetet. Inga anläggningar påträffades, och endast enstaka fynd av flintor.
Resteröd 64:1 – Markarbetet, med schakt, förlades längs fornlämningens nordvästra avgränsning. En kokgrop, en förhistorisk markyta och flintor påträffades.
Resteröd 102:1 – Markarbetet, med schakt, förlades tvärs över fornlämningens centrala del. En mesolitisk härd samt en tidig neolitisk härd påträffades.
Resteröd 129:1 - Markarbetet, med schakt, förlades i fornlämningens östra del.
Utifrån resultaten av förundersökningarna anser Rio Göteborg att fornlämningarna kan betraktas som undersökta och borttagna inom de angivna ytorna, medan lagskydd kvarstår för övriga delar.
Den arkeologiska utredningen föranleddes av den kommande byggnationen av en cykel- och gångväg, en nedläggning av VA-ledning samt en planerad byggnation av en ny ridanläggning inom nämnda fastighet.
Utredningsområdet utgörs av en vägsträckning på cirka 1 kilometer samt en angiven yta på cirka 150 meter x 150 meter, totalt är det cirka 42 000 m2 stort. Ytan består huvudsakligen av åkermark, men omfattar även södra delen av Trankärrsgården. Höjden över havet varierar mellan 10-15 meter.
Innan fältarbetet påbörjades genomfördes en kart- och arkivstudie i syfte att få en bättre bild av kulturlandskapets utveckling inom utredningsområdet.
I fält inventerades området först okulärt med fokus på att identifiera lämpliga boplatslägen samt potentiella gravar i höjdlägen. Området undersöktes därefter med 44 sökschakt som upptogs med maskin i en jämn fördelning över undersökningsytan. Detta för att utreda om området innehöll fornlämningar.
Varken fornlämningar eller lösfynd framkom, däremot identifierades en övrig kulturhistorisk lämning i form av en odaterad stenläggning som påträffades söder om den nuvarande Trankärrsgården. Den kartografiska rektifiering som utfördes i samband med den arkeologiska utredningen avslöjade att 1600-talsgården Trankärr som låg på platsen var försedd med en skvaltkvarn och ansluten damm. Ett eventuellt järnåldersgravfält identifierades också på samma karta.
Rio Göteborg anser att detta bör beaktas i det fall ytterligare exploatering sker i anslutning till Trankärrsgården. Inga vidare antikvariska åtgärder föreslås inom det nu aktuella utredningsområdet.
previous interventions at Brill. The development of the pottery industry at Brill, from a royal manor in the early part of the medieval period to an enfeoffed manor from the 14th century, is discussed. Consideration is given to royal manorial trade as well as the mechanism for the emergence of early modern industrialisation in rural
Buckinghamshire.
The watching brief, which commenced in December 2006 at Newington House, Newington, Oxfordshire, revealed remains of a building, metalled surfaces, ditches delimiting plot-boundaries, pits and postholes. The remains of a possible ore-roasting hearth, which never came into use, were also identified. Post-excavation analysis of pits and gullies dating from the 12th century, associated with postholes and a trampled earthen floor, lead to the identification of an early building as a further smithy.
With the support of the then-County Archaeologist, Paul Smith, English Heritage (EH) were contacted and Chris Welch, Inspector of Ancient Monuments, visited the site with Paddy O’Hara, also of EH. Following the site visit EH gave financial support to the excavation of the smithy identified during fieldwork. Extreme weather conditions meant that the site was subject to periods of excavation between January and August 2007, when fieldwork was completed.
Following the completion of fieldwork, contact was made with South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group, which had previously carried out investigations at Newington House in the early to mid 1980s. This work, which had been reported in South Midlands Archaeology at the time, was never published. The archive was lent to JMHS and has been integrated as best possible to the current project providing a fuller picture of the recent work and also enabling some form of publication of SOAG’s project. This work comprised an excavation and recording exercise in addition to an earthwork survey, and test-pittingat the location of the intervention carried out 20 years later by JMHS. A campaign of field-walking carried out at an adjacent field yielded evidence corroborating a 16th-century map held by All Souls, Oxford.
The evaluation had highlighted the potential for in-situ Mesolithic deposits to be present across the site. Unfortunately this did not prove to be the case during the excavation, although the centre of Area 1 was identified as the locus of a large, regionally important, scatter of Mesolithic flintwork.
Evidence points to the site as a major focus for continued activity from the later Bronze Age to Early Iron Age in the area. During this time the landscape was in a state of flux, undergoing almost constant change as it was successively demarcated and divided into areas for habitation, agricultural and ritual practice.
Middle Bronze Age activity was represented by a single structure perhaps on the fringe of a wider settlement close by. This settlement appears to have focused in the area in the later Bronze Age that witnessed structures, pits and cremations dotting an unenclosed landscape.
This situation did not remain for long and the focus of activity appears to be concentrated around a timber built shrine building, with six associated long-house buildings, two of which were notable for the sunken floors associated with them. A possible circular cult-building lay nearby.
It did not survive long as a “religious centre”, the landscape was reorganised in a new vision of an agglomerated field-system of at least 10 enclosures. The associated building appears to have been of an agricultural nature. Within a generation or two this was itself replaced by a oval post-enclosure. It is probable that the settlement focus moved to the north and east at this point in the Late Bronze Age – Early Iron Age. Subsequently, a second field-system comprising at least five fields, which appears to have been laid out at a single moment in time replaced the post-enclosure.
In addition to the prehistoric remains, evidence was also recorded for a medieval croft dating from the 11th to 14th centuries, set in a landscape of unenclosed fields or perhaps utilising earlier boundaries, with new farm buildings being constructed through out this period as the older ones go out of use.
were contingent, and in many cases among aliens probably more local than national. The social impacts of war in modern-day west Sweden extended beyond the towns directly affected, such as Nya Lödöse and Ny Varberg. The degree to which individuals could act with agency and autonomy was contingent and context-specific. Forced migration and the negotiation of identity are issues that remain relevant today; questions of memory, property, trauma, history, and narratives are still debated by combatants and non-combatants. Many of the issues which both civilians and military, men and women, experienced in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century wars between Sweden and Denmark-Norway are much the same as in more recent times. The social impacts of war in the seventeenth century were no less than those experienced in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
In the immediate post-Conquest period the site was characterised by the laying out of plots or small enclosures, adjacent to a shallow stream. Subsequently during the 12th-century a structure, which in post-excavation appeared to represent a smithy, was erected within one of the enclosures. This post-fast structure was associated with smithing debris, particularly hammerscale. Later, during the 13th century, the post-fast smithy was replaced by a smithy with stone footings, a hearth, an anvil-setting and possibly a bosh. This phase of activity could be tied to the investigations undertaken by South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group in the 1980s.
Blacksmithing rather than iron-production appears to have been the sole function of the buildings. The excavation represents one of the very few examples of medieval smithies excavated in England.
Glass, pottery and ceramic building materials are discussed.
De arkeologiska förundersökningarna utfördes i samband med nedgrävning av VA-ledning inom fastigheter. Varje delområde undersöktes och återfylldes innan VA-ledning anlades.
Resteröd 57:1 – Fornlämningens östra avgränsning berördes av markarbetet. Inga anläggningar påträffades, och endast enstaka fynd av flintor.
Resteröd 64:1 – Markarbetet, med schakt, förlades längs fornlämningens nordvästra avgränsning. En kokgrop, en förhistorisk markyta och flintor påträffades.
Resteröd 102:1 – Markarbetet, med schakt, förlades tvärs över fornlämningens centrala del. En mesolitisk härd samt en tidig neolitisk härd påträffades.
Resteröd 129:1 - Markarbetet, med schakt, förlades i fornlämningens östra del.
Utifrån resultaten av förundersökningarna anser Rio Göteborg att fornlämningarna kan betraktas som undersökta och borttagna inom de angivna ytorna, medan lagskydd kvarstår för övriga delar.
Den arkeologiska utredningen föranleddes av den kommande byggnationen av en cykel- och gångväg, en nedläggning av VA-ledning samt en planerad byggnation av en ny ridanläggning inom nämnda fastighet.
Utredningsområdet utgörs av en vägsträckning på cirka 1 kilometer samt en angiven yta på cirka 150 meter x 150 meter, totalt är det cirka 42 000 m2 stort. Ytan består huvudsakligen av åkermark, men omfattar även södra delen av Trankärrsgården. Höjden över havet varierar mellan 10-15 meter.
Innan fältarbetet påbörjades genomfördes en kart- och arkivstudie i syfte att få en bättre bild av kulturlandskapets utveckling inom utredningsområdet.
I fält inventerades området först okulärt med fokus på att identifiera lämpliga boplatslägen samt potentiella gravar i höjdlägen. Området undersöktes därefter med 44 sökschakt som upptogs med maskin i en jämn fördelning över undersökningsytan. Detta för att utreda om området innehöll fornlämningar.
Varken fornlämningar eller lösfynd framkom, däremot identifierades en övrig kulturhistorisk lämning i form av en odaterad stenläggning som påträffades söder om den nuvarande Trankärrsgården. Den kartografiska rektifiering som utfördes i samband med den arkeologiska utredningen avslöjade att 1600-talsgården Trankärr som låg på platsen var försedd med en skvaltkvarn och ansluten damm. Ett eventuellt järnåldersgravfält identifierades också på samma karta.
Rio Göteborg anser att detta bör beaktas i det fall ytterligare exploatering sker i anslutning till Trankärrsgården. Inga vidare antikvariska åtgärder föreslås inom det nu aktuella utredningsområdet.
previous interventions at Brill. The development of the pottery industry at Brill, from a royal manor in the early part of the medieval period to an enfeoffed manor from the 14th century, is discussed. Consideration is given to royal manorial trade as well as the mechanism for the emergence of early modern industrialisation in rural
Buckinghamshire.
A range of archaeological remains comprising potentially Roman activity, as well as a medieval road and cobbled surfaces, a number of walls indicating the former existence
of buildings, in addition to ditches and pits were present.
Possible burgage plots contained pits and postholes, although it is not clear whether these are indicative of occupation predating the absorption of this part of the village of Eynsham into the abbey precinct at the beginning of the 14th century.
This note indicates the potential significance of the material as well as putting it int some general historical and archaeological context. Recommendations for further work are also included in the report.
Remains of the medieval settlement, comprising building remains, a greenway and field boundaries were recovered during evaluation and subsequently during an intervention related to the excavation of footings for a sports pavilion, within the walled garden of the present house.
The medieval activity was sealed by 18th-century dumping and ground consolidation undertaken by Capability Brown during the creation of lake elsewhere within the estate.
Later ponds were dug into the 18th-century deposits.
This is the first new cemetery evidence at Dorchester-on-Thames in 30-odd years.
This occupation activity was subsequently replaced by part of an ordered cemetery of more than 24 individuals dating from late 3rd C onwards buried east/west. Parts of a cemetery had previously been observed all around the present site, but only as isolated burials during watching brief exercises. The cemetery was ditched, with a bank, on its south side. Pottery, dating from the 1st to 3rd C, and ceramic building materials were recovered from the graves.
The report is currently in preparation as a PX assessment although up-to-date details are available from the author."
The results of the trenching revealed a Bronze Age ring-ditch, which had been reused in the Romano-British period, a Bronze Age trackway apparently to a field-system or droveway for animal pens.
There were extensive remains of a Romano-British farmstead and associated agricultural activity, which probably comprised a vineyard, recovered on the western side of the site. A Roman enclosure, which may have had its origins in the Bronze Age, was sampled on the northern side of the site. To the west of this
enclosure were further remains of Roman enclosures, and possible structures.
A number of cremations were also observed across the site, some of which could assuredly be dated to the Roman period while others were undated.
No further work is anticipated at the site at present.
a laboratory for D’Overbroeks School and before that as gardens for the house.
Consequently, the site had been heavily truncated in places.
Nevertheless, the remains of five Middle Iron Age pits and a contemporary surface were recovered in addition to a further five undated pits, which were probably also of Middle Iron Age date.
This indicates the presence of later prehistoric activity complementing that on Port Meadow and at Grandpont, locating the Park Town site within the characteristic Upper Thames Valley Middle Iron Age tradition.
During the 19th century the site was redeveloped. The land where Park Town now stands, which had been owned by New College and sold to the Oxford Local Board, or Board of Guardians, was to be used for the St Giles’ workhouse. When the workhouse was built in Cowley, the New College land was redeveloped for the Board by Samuel Lipscomb Seckham. Although not a part of Norham Manor, owned by St John’s, Park Town provided the template for the redevelopment of North Oxford.
When 1 Park Town was erected a stables was also built to the rear of the property, with some garden features present, which were evidenced archaeologically and cartographically.
Spreads of Mesolithic flint indicated the use of the site, probably as a base camp during the later Mesolithic period.
The Middle Bronze Age evidence comprised ditch indicating the potential use of the site as part of the MBA landscape. A possible structure was also identified.
Late Bronze Age evidence included possible longhouses, which were replaced by an aggregated field system. This in turn was superseded by a large sub-circular post structure measuring c. 30 in diameter, which might have had practical uses for coralling animals, or people, and/or non-functional attributes. A Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age phase field-system, which was on a different alignment to the earlier, succeeded the sub-circular enclosure and was also investigated.
A medieval croft extending from the late 11th to 13th centuries was investigated. This comprised two phases of the core-structure, with a number of outbuildings which were in use during the functioning of the early medieval farmstead.
Metallurgical waste and parallels are illustrated""
landscapes of dispossession
Studies of the later prehistoric landscapes of Britain have followed a teleological discourse of increasing complexity and centralisation of power linked to a perceived implicit improvement in management and exploitation of the land permitting access to a range of goods conferring status. While the central tenet of this position has been demonstrated to be questionable, at best, in liminal areas such as Dartmoor, in other areas, such as the Thames Valley, it still dominates. Here, it has recently been argued, that nodal centres formed proto-kingdoms in what is best described as an implicitly medievalised prehistoric world, comprising a class - almost serf-like in its archaeological absence, dominated by ritual specialists and overlords, accessing bronze objects, amber, jet and decorated ceramics.
Nomadism is a vital aspect of many pre-capitalist societies where the semi-nomadic groups provide an important means of contact in terms of trade, exogamy and cultural transmission. Nomads are frequently the glue holding settled populations together. Work both by Stuart Needham and by French researchers has examined the Manche-Mer-du-Nord zone of influence, all the while archaeologists of later prehistory have overlooked the need for internal modes of cultural transmission. The relationship between nomads and the landscape in which they operated has historically not formed a significant aspect of British prehistory.
The relational ties between settled and nomadic populations have been explored in the anthropological literature. British archaeological literature does not offer such unequivocal data, but the material remains – field boundaries, depositions, hillforts and so forth – provide a data-set which has functioned in debate largely as intermediaries purely of a sedentary society interacting as competing polities. Few of the material remains, which can be seen to be in dialogue with landscape elements such as hills, watercourses and plateaux, are discussed as the syntax of nomadic populations.
This paper considers the role of nomads in such landscapes, the difficulty of identifying such an ephemeral population and the need to extend our range of referents beyond the most visible traces of occupation when examining the prehistory of Britain. The prehistory of landowning overshadows the prehistory as well as history of transhumant populations up to and beyond the medieval period (evidenced by Tudor Vagrancy Laws, for example). Despite the limited tools available to practitioners working in the commercial field, commercial excavations are revealing the prehistory of Britain’s nomads."
As Brian Gilmour could not attend to present the scientific results, the paper focussed on the physical layout of the smithy as a workshop
Contact with Germany and particularly Holland was as important for Swedish merchants as for those on England’s east coast. Excavations at Gamlestaden, Gothenburg have revealed evidence for imported brick from Holland in the 1500s, while early Gothenburgers employed Dutch brickmakers and imported German brick to build the new city from the 1620s. Brick production in west Sweden reveals a long tradition drawing on Baltic traditions as well as those of the North Sea area.