Northstowe Phase 1, Cambridgeshire. Archaeological Archive Report. Areas C, E, F, J, K & M

Abstract

Excavations occurred between 2014 to 2016 in advanced of the Northstowe Phase 1 housing development, revealing an extensive landscape with archaeological features dating from the Middle Bronze to the 11th century CE, and into the medieval and post medieval periods. Over this three millennia period the same space has been occupied in different ways by people working the land and living in it. We see the first signs of this process in the Middle to Late Bronze Age field systems and seasonal activity, perhaps over a thousand year period. Until the Middle Iron Age when we first observe the establishment of up to 14 small settlements in the wider vicinity, two of which we present in this book. As these settlement create a community in the landscape, connected though communal spaces, at the eve of the Roman occupation of Britain, there is a process of abandonment and the forming of a new, larger Romano-British settlement. While the Romano-British settlement continues to grow, the former Iron Age settlement diminishes, and is turned into a seasonal place, and for farming. The main set piece is the Roman settlement, covering a four hectare area, enclosures and structures, trackways, and a possible small shrine, and burials, are reorganized on a 50 year or so cycle, reconfirming the same spaces until the 4th century CE when we begin to see a contraction in the settlement, and a change in use. And from the early 5th century we observe a new settlement arrangement, with a series of small, ‘mobile’ settlement clusters outside of the former Romano-British settlement, with a series of rare early-5th to 6th and 7th century burials, a time that is called the ‘dark ages’. Furthermore, there was also a subsequent development from the 9th century CE onwards which formed a proto-village. And in parallel, if not slightly to this development in the medieval period proper, an open field around the settlement was created. In the form of ridge and furrow (with visible ‘headlands’ or baulks between the fields visible on lidar imagery), the field system lay on the former areas of the Bronze Age field system, Iron Age settlements, and Roman farm, and lasted until the post-medieval and into the Modern periods.