Skip to main content

Orsett: view through the entrances in area B. 338 Photo: John Hedges entrance structure, but the excavation did not reveal whether the palisade was contemporary with the ditches. A radiocarbon determination of 2791 ± 113 b.c. came from the central post holes of the palisade entrance. The other main area, area C, succeeded in locating the inner ditch, which again proved to be a typical Neolithic type, though at 2 metres deep rather deeper than the outer circle. Early Neolithic pottery was found at the bottom of the ditch and also some charcoal from which a date of 2635 — 82 b.c. has been obtained. However the main result of this excavation was in elucidating the air photograph and in eliminating many of the features from the Neolithic picture. Thus the two ring ditches proved to be Saxon inhumation timber mausolea (no mound covered burials), while the sub-rectangular enclosure was Early Iron Age in date. There are also a number of very large Iron Age pits and, as at Hambledon, there also appear to have been considerable late Neolithic and Beaker activity on the site, with pottery being found both in the post holes and in the upper levels of the ditches. The early Neolithic pottery was mainly in the Mildenhall tradition, though the site appears to lie on the edges of the Mildenhall, Ebbsfleet and Abingdon style zones. In conclusion Mr. Hedges pointed out that judging by the air photographs the ditches at Orsett and many other sites do not appear to make a complete circuit. As David R. Wilson, the Cambridge air photographer, pointed out, it is sometimes dangerous to use negative evidence from air photographs. However, Mr. Hedges believes that a sufficient number of causewayed camps show ditches petering out for no good reason to make it feasible to wonder whether some of these did have an open side. The only place where an open sided Neolithic enclosure has been proved is the strange C shaped enclosure excavated by Dr. Wainwright at Broome Heath in Norfolk, and though this is of a later date it could provide a parallel.

Briar Hill: these two sections, axial (above) and transverse (below) reveal four separate phases. 1. Original cut. 2. The first recut is visible at the eastern and northern ends. The fill contained two sherds of plain neolithic pottery. 3. The second recut at the western end was short and very deep, from the top of the fill of phase 2. 4. Pit dug into the fill of the second recut at the western end including much burnt material, and contained sherds of late neolithic impressed pottery, and flints of late neolithic type. Briar Hill The most intensive current excavation of a causewayed camp, however, is that at Briar Hill, close by the Iron Age hill fort of Hunsbury just outside Northampton. Here Dr. Helen Bamford of the Northampton Development Corporation has been excavating for between 8-9 months a year for just over two years. Approximately two-thirds of the enclosure has been stripped by machine and just under one-third has so far been examined in detail. The site is extremely difficult to dig, for the subsoil is a periglacial deposit, for in the Ice Ages it lay on the perimeter of the ice sheet, and the local beds of ironstone, sandstone and estuarine clays have been churned up and distorted by alternate freezing and thawing, and solifluxion. It is thus extremely difficult to define or even identify man-made disturbances. The initial magnetometer survey (see CA49) proved to be exceptionally accurate and useful, but the archaeology is complicated by the presence of considerable Iron Age and Saxon occupation: four Saxon grubenhauser have so far been identified and a number of Iron Age features, so that no feature in the interior can at present be definitely assigned to the Neolithic, though there are some structures that could be of that period. Nevertheless some of the ditch sections have proved informative. In plan Briar Hill is very like Orsett, consisting of a double outer set of ditches and a rather odd inner ring, which links up with the innermost of the outer pair in a sort of spiral shape. About a third of the main ditch circuits have been examined and extensively sampled by excavation, mostly by the quadrant method, which provides not only cross sections, but also longitudinal sections along the ditches, and it is these longitudinal sections which have been the more revealing, showing that most ditches had been recut, in one place up to four times. The sections reveal that the two outer ditches are very similar, but work has only just begun on the spiral, revealing that it is clearly different to the outer ditches, though it is not yet possible to say which is the earlier. An interesting question concerning Briar Hill is the apparent cultural poverty of the site. Windmill Hill has encouraged us in the belief that causewayed camps are exceptionally rich in all kinds of finds, both pottery and stone. By comparison Briar Hill is distinctly poor. The ditch fills have produced some 50 finds of pottery, excluding the late Neolithic and Beaker sherds from the top fills, and these 50 finds include only a dozen or so 339

Page Text

Orsett: view through the entrances in area B.

338

Photo: John Hedges entrance structure, but the excavation did not reveal whether the palisade was contemporary with the ditches. A radiocarbon determination of 2791 ± 113 b.c. came from the central post holes of the palisade entrance.

The other main area, area C, succeeded in locating the inner ditch, which again proved to be a typical Neolithic type, though at 2 metres deep rather deeper than the outer circle. Early Neolithic pottery was found at the bottom of the ditch and also some charcoal from which a date of 2635 — 82 b.c. has been obtained. However the main result of this excavation was in elucidating the air photograph and in eliminating many of the features from the Neolithic picture. Thus the two ring ditches proved to be Saxon inhumation timber mausolea (no mound covered burials), while the sub-rectangular enclosure was Early Iron Age in date. There are also a number of very large Iron Age pits and, as at Hambledon, there also appear to have been considerable late Neolithic and Beaker activity on the site, with pottery being found both in the post holes and in the upper levels of the ditches. The early Neolithic pottery was mainly in the Mildenhall tradition, though the site appears to lie on the edges of the Mildenhall, Ebbsfleet and Abingdon style zones.

In conclusion Mr. Hedges pointed out that judging by the air photographs the ditches at Orsett and many other sites do not appear to make a complete circuit. As David R. Wilson, the Cambridge air photographer, pointed out, it is sometimes dangerous to use negative evidence from air photographs. However, Mr. Hedges believes that a sufficient number of causewayed camps show ditches petering out for no good reason to make it feasible to wonder whether some of these did have an open side. The only place where an open sided Neolithic enclosure has been proved is the strange C shaped enclosure excavated by Dr. Wainwright at Broome Heath in Norfolk, and though this is of a later date it could provide a parallel.

My Bookmarks

Skip to main content