The First Village in Northamptonshire

Transcription

1 C RICK The First Village in Northamptonshire

2 Contributors Text by Andrew Mudd and Rob Masefield, with contributions from Ann Woodward, Andy Chapman and Peter Ellis Reconstruction drawings by Mark Gridley Photography by staff of Cotswold Archaeology and MOLA Northampton (formerly Northamptonshire Archaeology); Prologis; Aerial-Cam Graphics by Lucy Martin, Matt Pearson and Daniel Bashford Design by Lucy Martin, Aleksandra Osinska and Andrew Mudd Printed by AJ Green Printing Ltd, Gloucester Published by Cotswold Archaeology in association with RPS Group on behalf of Prologis Cotswold Archaeology and RPS Group PLC 2014 Front and back covers: Artist s impression of the site from the east c. 200 BC (Mark Gridley, Carbonmade) The site of Crick Covert Farm Long Dole Watling Street county boundary The northern part of the site in 2013 looking east.

3 Introduction T he construction of the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal, to the west of Crick in Northamptonshire, over the past 20 years, has led to archaeological discoveries that are transforming our understanding of the pre-roman Iron Age landscape. The density of settlement uncovered invites a comparison with an extended village a remarkable discovery and one totally unexpected when the development of this major infrastructure project started. N Prologis is proud to be associated with this extraordinary archaeological site and to have sponsored the analysis of these excavations leading to the story related here. Mark Shepherd Prologis Watling Street Covert Farm WARWICKSHIRE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Long Dole Crick Hotel Nortoft Lane Site area without settlement The Lodge Iron Age and Roman settlement county boundary 0 1km

4 Site location The excavations took place within a 178-hectare area of land on the border of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, with Leicestershire lying just 4 km to the north. It is a watershed region of clay uplands capped with occasional outcrops of glacially-derived sands and gravels. It is within this rather damp and unpromising landscape that one of the largest Iron Age settlements in the country was revealed. The area of settlement comprised five blocks of farmsteads encompassing a small valley through which Clifton Brook flows northward to join the headwaters of the Warwickshire Avon. The largest of these at Covert Farm (Crick) was almost continuous with Long Dole to the north and Crick Hotel to the south. To the south lay another settlement at The Lodge, while a linear settlement at Nortoft Lane (Kilsby) flanked the valley to the west. They formed a curve of farmsteads overlooking the valley and bounded, at least in part, by an embankment. The possible northern entrance to the settlement through a gap in the perimeter embankment, with Long Dole (right) and Covert Farm (left). Cattle are being taken from the core pastureland to summer floodplain meadows down the valley.

5 Bronze Age cremations and loomweight pit Bronze Age cylindrical loomweight in a small pit. There were traces of human occupation as far back as the Neolithic period (c BC) in the form of occasional fragments of pottery and flintwork from Covert Farm. Later, in the early Bronze Age, a cremation burial was made in a small pit at Nortoft Lane. The cremated bone, which had been burnt white and was very fragmentary, represented the remains of an adult and a child and was dated by radiocarbon to BC. The tradition of burial here continued into later centuries. Seven more cremation burials of both adults and children a little further west yielded radiocarbon dates in the range BC, so it seems that the site was used for burial on an intermittent basis during the Bronze Age. Rather than being contained within urns, the bone had been collected and placed directly within small pits. Fragments of charcoal with the bone show that oak was the fuel used for the pyre. Oak was normally used as it burns at a consistently high temperature necessary for complete cremation (over 800 C). Another Bronze Age burial of perhaps comparable significance was that of a complete cylindrical clay loomweight, which had been placed in a small pit. There was a lot of charcoal associated with it, unusually comprising mostly seeds of flax. It is likely that flax was cultivated nearby, but since no Bronze Age settlement was apparent, it seems that burning and burial may have been a commemorative practice like the cremation rite in this location. A flax seed was dated by radiocarbon to BC. Flax plant and seed capsules. Although wool was a common material for textiles by the Bronze Age, flax has a much earlier usage. The stems would have been retted (soaked), scutched (beaten), hackled (combed) and then woven on a warpweighted loom to produce linen.

6 Bronze Age burnt pit and waterhole Bronze Age remains were also present on the lower land to the north of the cremations. Here, a large waterhole, was contemporary with a nearby trough containing burnt stones and charcoal. The complete absence of pottery or other artefacts makes it difficult to understand what the trough was for. It was probably a temporary cooking site, but it may have been used for other purposes needing heat and water. The waterhole may have provided water for both people and livestock. It contained pollen grains, well preserved in the damp, clay sediment. At the base, in a layer containing charcoal, the pollen indicated that this was a deposit of burnt grasses or cereals. Above it the pollen was dominated by oak, with lime and hazel also present. Oats and barley pollen were also present, demonstrating cultivation quite locally. This woodland horizon was dated by radiocarbon to BC. Higher up in the profile were more light-loving species such as hazel and more grassland - with grasses, fat hen, thistles, plantains, dandelions, daisies and buttercups. This sequence shows that the clearance of woodland and the cultivation of cereals was taking place in the area from the mid second millennium BC. Bronze Age trough containing burnt stone and wood charcoal, associated with a waterhole. Scale 1m. Section through the waterhole, 2m deep, showing the column sample taken for pollen analysis. The sequence of local pollen assemblage zones (LPAZ) indicate progressive woodland clearance, as the waterhole slowly filled with sediment. LPAZ LPAZ LPAZ LPAZ LPAZ LPAZ column sample for pollen grains

7 Iron Age settlement Settlement around the rim of the valley began to be established in the early Iron Age, from about 500 BC, and may have started with a partial enclosure of the valley head by a boundary ditch. There is wider evidence of formal division of the land in Northamptonshire starting in the early Iron Age as remnants of the wild landscape were cleared for farming and areas of earlier settlement became more crowded. The extent and nature of the settlement is much clearer in the following century. From about 400 BC until about 100 BC the settlement was at its greatest extent, and was formed by clusters of roundhouses, shelters and enclosures constructed for dwellings, storage, managing livestock and other activities. Each cluster may have been the dwelling of an extended family, or other small group, engaged principally in mixed farming along with crafts such as ironworking. At its peak the settlement comprised around 100 circular buildings across the five sites, of which between one third and one half are likely to have been family residences, so the settlement housed an estimated population of people. This multi-focal village had at its core an area of around 100 hectares of valley pasture. This is likely to have formed a common for grazing. Arable land presumably fringed the village on its upland side. View from the Iron Age settlement at Nortoft Lane looking north across the clayland. The settlement clings to a gravelly ridge. A roundhouse eaves-drip gully is being excavated in the foreground. Medieval plough furrow cross the whole area

8 DIRFT 3 Zone II Small Scored Ware jar, typical of the middle Iron Age of the region?common grazing land Bronze Age waterhole Nortoft Lane The scarcity of grain storage pits or structures and the damp nature of the clayland, indicate that pastoral farming was the mainstay of the economy. previous page photo location The size of this community is clear evidence of the success of farming and trading here over several hundred years m

9 N Covert Farm Site Map Long Dole course of Watling Street Crick Hotel John Samuels Evaluation (outside DIRFT) The Lodge Roman settlement The Iron Age settlement as revealed by excavation and geophysical survey. The plan shows the minimum extent of the settled area, which is of several phases but almost exclusively Iron Age in date. The large open area of lowland in the middle may have been for common grazing.

10 Iron Age farming - animals The enclosure of grazing land in the valley gives an indication of the importance of animal husbandry to the Iron Age farmers at Crick. Animal bones were not well preserved due to the naturally slightly acidic ground conditions, but some bones of cattle, sheep, horse and pig Bones of Iron Age cattle from Crick Hotel (left) with post-roman examples (right) were recovered. Cattle were predominant on all sites, although Covert Farm also showed a high proportion of horses (20%) for some of the time. The larger ditched enclosures of around 20 metres across may have been cattle corrals. Iron Age cattle and horses were small animals. Cattle were the size of the present Dexter breed and all horses were pony sized. One animal from Crick Hotel had an estimated withers height of 1.26 metres similar to an Exmoor pony. At Covert Farm there were fragments of briquetage - ceramic containers used to transport salt from the brine springs of the Cheshire Plain. This is an indication of the importance of salt used for the preservation of meat, and of the range of contact maintained. Horn core from a bull A modern Dexter bull. This small breed, similar in size to Iron Age cattle, is popular among some farmers today for its hardiness, and ability to closely crop and thrive on rough pasture. Cattle first phalanx (foot): the small Iron Age animal shows disease, possibly foot-rot caused by damp ground. Exmoor pony and foal.

11 Iron Age farming - cereals Although the village may have been designed to optimise grazing land, arable farming was also important. Carbonised remains of crops and weeds were recovered from all areas. The most important crop was spelt wheat, a hardy cereal that became widespread in Britain at this time. A grain of spelt from a pit in the earliest phase of farming settlement at Nortoft Lane was dated by radiocarbon to BC. The more ancient variety of wheat emmer was also present, and barley may have been more common than appears in the record: as a freethreshing cereal, it did not require parching to separate the grain from the chaff, and probably did not come in to contact with fire as often as wheat. The complete upper part of a beehive sandstone quern with two concentric grooves carved below the rim and around the shoulder, from Nortoft Lane. Cleaned grain was milled using hand-operated querns, and numerous fragments of saddle querns and rotary querns were found. Nearly all the querns were made from Millstone Grit and must have been acquired from somewhere north of the River Trent. Uniquely, the complete upper part of a decorated beehive rotary quern was found on Nortoft Lane. It had been placed in the upper fill of a storage pit Part of a clay oven structure from Nortoft Lane, and how the oven may have looked. containing burnt grain. Similarly, at Long Dole a complete saddle quern was found in the top of a pit at the centre of a small structure - perhaps a shrine. Barley Spelt wheat

12 Iron Age landscape The Iron Age farming village occupied a landscape that was not altogether different from that of recent times. The people who farmed here from around 500 BC until the century or so before the Romans arrived can be credited with the creation of the managed fields, pasture, woods and hedges that has had such an enduring presence in the landscape. The detail of the fragile carbonised plants give an indication of what the landscape was like. The wild seeds brought in with the harvest show that the wheatfields contained a great diversity of natural plants, including wild oats and ryegrass, brome grass, cleavers, goosefoot, buttercup, stitchwort, knotweed, red bartsia, ragged robin, campion, mustard and nightshade. The charcoal from hearths and ovens shows the local fuel was collected from woods and hedges containing oak, ash, lime, Wych elm, field maple, hazel, willow, birch, spindle, hawthorn and cherry. RG 3 E 2 E 4 Wild seeds A modern field margin sown with wild bird seed mix to encourage the return of species of birds now in decline. The varied crop includes modern varieties of grain and self-sown fat hen, and may be very similar in appearance to an arable field in the Iron Age. Chaff Grain Percentage diagrams from Crick Hotel show the relative proportions of cereal grain, chaff and wild seeds from three enclosures. Wild seeds were as common as grain in the harvested crop.

13 Late Iron Age and Roman developments The Iron Age village did not last into the 1st century AD except at The Lodge where a new settlement was established next to the earlier one. It is likely that other farms were founded in the area at this time, but they seem to have avoided earlier settled sites. The region is known to have been a borderland between the Late Iron Age tribes of the Catuvellauni to the south-east, the Dobunni to the south-west and the Corieltauvi to the north. There was no direct evidence of the Roman conquest found at Crick but the strategically important road known as Watling Street was constructed through the valley by AD 60. The area lay roughly equidistant between the minor Roman towns of Bannaventa (near Whilton Lodge) to the south and Tripontium (near Shawell, Leicestershire) five miles to the north. The settlement at The Lodge lay on Watling Street and may have developed as a roadside centre throughout the Roman period. Iron Age Settlement N Iron Age Settlement Roman Settlement Anglo-Saxon sunken-floored building excavation area Iron Age and Roman settlements at The Lodge. There is a clear dislocation of settlement around the beginning of the first century AD. 0 50m railway old field boundary Roman Settlement Late Iron Age symbols on gold coins: Catuvellauni, with an ear of barley; Dobunni with a stylised horse and wheels or suns. Its agricultural richness made the lowland of the British Isles an attractive prize for the Romans.

14 Anglo-Saxons and after TThe discovery at The Lodge of a sunken-floored building and a pit containing early Anglo-Saxon pottery is the only tangible evidence of Anglo-Saxon settlement in the area. Watling Street remained in use and was given its present name (Old English Wæcelinga Stræt paved road of the people of Wæcel). A burial of probable Anglo-Saxon date came to light in 1947 at Covert Farm next to Watling Street, while from Nortoft Lane an Anglo-Saxon spearhead may have come from a ploughed out grave nearby. Anglo-Saxon spearhead from Nortoft Lane. The wide extent of ploughing in the Middle Ages was shown by furrows on all sites. In several cases, the coincidence of alignment of medieval furrows and Iron Age and Roman ditches suggests that the open-field system took account of long-lived boundaries. The curve of the shire boundary shared by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire was examined north of Nortoft Lane and was shown to have been originally represented by a ditch, which, while undated, may have had Roman or earlier origins. Crick has been on a nationally important routeway since at least Roman times. It lies just north of the Watford Gap where the A5 (constructed by Thomas Telford on the line of the Roman road), the Grand Union Canal, the West Coast Mainline Railway and the M1 Motorway pass through a narrow corridor. The Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal is the latest chapter in this long story. An Anglo-Saxon pot from a pit at The Lodge. The sunken-floored building at The Lodge. Two large post-holes on the long axis form the main structural supports for the roof. The scale is 2m.

15 Acknowledgements The archaeological work summarised in this booklet is the result of work by a number of different archaeological organisations and individuals over a long period of time. Continuity has been provided by RPS (formerly RPS Clouston), who have managed the project throughout. The final synthesis and publication of the site has been made possible by the support of Prologis, owners and developers of Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal since Northamptonshire Archaeology (now MOLA Northampton) undertook the excavations at Long Dole and The Lodge in The former Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit excavated the large Crick Covert Farm site in , and Foundations Archaeology the site at Crick Hotel in Cotswold Archaeology carried out excavations on the Nortoft Lane sites between 2006 and The individuals involved are too numerous to mention here, but thanks are extended to particular contributors to this booklet - Philip Armitage for the study of the Iron Age cattle bones, Rob and Alison Kirk for sharing their knowledge of Dexter cattle, and Andrew Butcher for information on Environmental Stewardship crops. An archaeological report is forthcoming in two volumes, to be published by Archaeopress, Oxford. Excavation of Iron Age roundhouse gullies at The Lodge in 1994, looking west between the entrance terminals of one of the houses.

16 The expansion of Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal near Crick, Northamptonshire, led to a series of archaeological investigations that have uncovered one of the largest Iron Age settlements in the country. This booklet describes the remarkable discoveries made over some 178 hectares of land over the last 20 years.