appeared in an area of farmland where small, but appreciable, quantities of later prehistoric and Roman metalwork had been located. With the permission of the landowner, Rebecca Hill, we conducted a quick surface collection survey that identified prehistoric pottery, including a small amount of Black Burnished Ware, the diagnostic type find of the later Iron Age in Dorset.
Enthused, we set out an area for geophysical survey in the late spring of 2015. This was completed by Dave Stewart, a key member of the Durotriges Project since its inception, who had just completed a (soon to be published) analysis of all hillfort interiors in Dorset. Undaunted by the scale of the task, he finished the survey in a matter of days, and immediately began processing the data. The results were exciting. Spreading out over a minimum of 20ha were a large number of pits and ditches, together with a suite of irregularly shaped features, possibly indicating areas of industrial activity. Within this zone, at least 20 ring ditches, between 10m and 15m in diameter, could clearly be identified. These features, which could only be prehistoric roundhouses, were not readily apparent in the cropmarks, and strongly suggested that we had indeed discovered an area of significant habitation.
Two areas measuring 20 × 20m were selected for sample excavation. Trench A was positioned in order to expose two potential roundhouses (the outer walls of which appeared to overlap, possibly providing a degree of chronological variation), together with 22 pits and a series of small ditches and other activity areas. Trench B was designed to examine a large and distinct roundhouse, measuring at least 15m in diameter, surrounded by a series of substantial ditches and at least 15
above In the dry spring of 2012 an enigmatic set of cropmarks drew attention to a previously unknown prehistoric settlement at Winterborne Kingston. left Trench B, one of two opened over the new Iron Age settlement in 2015. Intended to expose what appears to be a massive roundhouse gully, 15m in diameter, it also revealed the partial footprint of further buildings, and the residues of possible industrial, agricultural, and craft activity.
right The geophysical survey of the area that produced the cropmarks revealed an array of features. Two areas were selected for excavation, one seemingly featuring two intersecting buildings, and the other containing an apparent roundhouse 15m in diameter.
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pits and other areas of possible industrial, craft or agricultural activity. Early in June 2015, having established a ‘base camp’, digging commenced.
Native resistance
The Durotriges were one of the few major Iron Age tribes in Britain identified and acknowledged by the Roman state in the later 1st century AD. Although we know nothing about their origins, history or social organisation – for like all pre-Roman communities in the British Isles, they stubbornly refused to write anything down – their cultural footprint is distinct. Occupying an area that roughly equates with modern-day Dorset, together with significant areas of southern Wiltshire and south-eastern Somerset, the pottery, coinage, and burial practices of the Durotriges, combined with their use of elaborately defended hillfort enclosures, mark them out from their contemporary neighbours, especially the Atrebates and the Belgae (to the east), and the Dumnonii and Dobunni (to the west and north).
The Durotriges’ territory has been well served by archaeological investigation. From the work of Colonel Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers in the late 19th century, via Tessa and Mortimer Wheeler, Geoffrey Wainwright, Barry Cunliffe, Martin Green, and Lilian Ladle, among many others, a succession of key Iron Age sites in
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