Search results for ""Author Andrew Simmonds""
Oxford Archaeology The Iron Age and Roman landscape of Marston Vale Bedfordshire Investigations Along the A421 Improvements M1 Junction 13 to Bedford 19 Oxford Archaeology Monograph
A programme of improvements to the A421 south-west of Bedford carried out by Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd on behalf of the Highways Agency afforded Oxford Archaeology an opportunity to investigate early settlement along a corridor of the clay landscape of Marston Vale, within the catchment of the River Great Ouse. The investigations comprised nine areas of excavation supplemented by watching briefs and earthwork surveys of three historic boundaries, as well as geophysical survey and field evaluation at a site that was not ultimately excavated. The Vale appears to have been visited only occasionally during the early prehistoric period, the evidence being limited to a sparse distribution of worked flint and a single cremation burial dated by radiocarbon to the early Iron Age. The majority of the remains uncovered dated from between the middle Iron Age and the late Roman period, and were consistently rural in character, consisting of a series of small farming settlements. The repo
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Oxford University School of Archaeology Gill Mill: Later Prehistoric Landscape and a Roman Nucleated Settlement in the Lower Windrush Valley at Gill Mill, near Witney, Oxfordshire
The valley floodplain landscape covered by the Gill Mill quarry, almost 130ha, was intensively exploited from about 300 BC at a variety of Iron Age settlements. The largest of these remained in occupation into the early 3rd century AD, but meanwhile a large nucleated settlement grew up around a road junction roughly 1km distant to the NW. This became the sole focus of occupation, covering an area of about 10ha. Featuring multiple ditched enclosures, some in very regular layouts associated with one of the roads, the settlement contained relatively few identified buildings and appears to have had a specialised economic role related to systematic cattle management, illuminated in part by large finds and environmental assemblages. It may have been an integral component of a wider estate holding and perhaps had an administrative focus (including a shrine) at its unexcavated centre. It is notable that occupation of the site had almost entirely ceased by about AD 370.
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Oxford Archaeology Harpole: The landscape of a Roman villa at Panattoni Park, Northamptonshire
Excavations at Panattoni Park, at Harpole within the Nene Valley west of Northampton, uncovered part of a Roman villa and evidence for preceding prehistoric and early Roman settlement.The earliest evidence was a Mesolithic flint-knapping site. During the early Iron Age or at the start of the middle Iron Age, a pit alignment was constructed running down the valley side. A middle Iron Age settlement of at least seven roundhouses lay 450m to the east of the pit alignment. It is likely that both the boundary and the settlement were associated with cattle grazing on the valley floor, and the settlement may have been seasonally occupied. An enclosure complex was constructed against the pit alignment during the late Iron Age and occupied until c AD 50/70, after which there was an apparent hiatus of about a century before the establishment of the villa during the mid-2nd century.The villa was first discovered in the 1840s when a mosaic was accidentally uncovered. It was believed to have been largely destroyed during widening of the adjacent A4500 road in 1966 when excavation of only a small area was possible. However, the new excavation has demonstrated the survival of part of the main villa complex, including a substantial aisled building that may have formed the southern range. An extensive part of the agricultural landscape surrounding the villa was investigated, including an area devoted to malting and an enclosure complex used as a stockyard for processing livestock. A further notable find was a small hoard of mower’s tools, perhaps the toolkit of an individual agricultural worker.A building interpreted as a temple-mausoleum of Romano-Celtic form situated beside a spring channel was also investigated. Pollen from the channel indicating the presence of a walnut grove may be the earliest definite evidence for the cultivation of walnut trees in Britain.
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Oxford Archaeology From Mesolithic to Motorway
Excavation in advance of engineering works along the M1 from Junctions 6a to 10 (between Hemel Hempstead and Luton) revealed significant archaeological remains of wide-ranging date. Important evidence for late Mesolithic and early Neolithic activity, including pits, was found at Junction 9, while later prehistoric features were more widely distributed but less concentrated. Late Iron Age and Roman features were most common, with significant rural settlements at Junctions 8 and 9, and further evidence for trackways and enclosures elsewhere. These sites were of fairly low status and concerned with mixed agriculture, though incidental activities included manufacture of puddingstone querns. Occupation was most intensive in the 1st-2nd centuries AD and on a reduced scale in the late Roman period. At Junction 8, however, an east-west trackway apparently survived as a landscape feature and in the 12th and 13th centuries was adjoined by a ditched enclosure containing structures belonging to a substantial farmstead.
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Oxford Archaeology The Patients’ Story: Dr Radcliffe's Legacy in the Age of Hospitals – Excavations at the 18th–19th Century Radcliffe – Infirmary Burial Ground, Oxford
Excavations at the site of the burial ground of the old Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, revealed the largest assemblage of individual burials yet recovered from an 18th/19th century hospital site in Britain. Founded in 1770 with funds from the estate of the Royal physician and MP John Radcliffe, the infirmary was rare in having its own dedicated burial ground. The skeletons span a short period of time, between 1770 and 1852, and comprise patients who had not been claimed for burial in their home parish. Virtually all of them are unidentified, but documentary evidence shows that they comprise members of the labouring and middle classes, most of whom had originated from the locality and the surrounding counties. Their bones provide an important perspective on the health of industrialising post-medieval populations, characterised by high rates of trauma and disease. They highlight the hitherto unrecognised role that the operating theatre and mortuary played in the development of medical education in Oxford. Further, they offer a unique and fascinating perspective on early modern hospital care, surgery and burial, from a period when hospitals underwent a radical transformation, becoming the medically-focused institutions that we know today.
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