Long Marston to Stratford Rising Main - Post-excavation Assessment

Wessex Archaeology

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned to carry out a programme of archaeological strip, map and record along the line of the 5,243 m long Stratford Rising Main, located between Long Marston and Milcote, Warwickshire.

The earliest archaeological features exposed in the excavation included an area of hollows associated with possible prehistoric burnt mounds. Two parallel pit alignments and a cluster of pits provided evidence for Iron Age settlement activity. Several pits and ditches indicated Romano- British agricultural and settlement activity, with the main focus of occupation in the late 2nd century, but with hints of earlier Roman activity in the vicinity. Several eroded furrows represented components of a medieval agricultural landscape. A scattering of postholes is likely to have been associated with the disused 19th-century Midland Railway.

A moderate finds assemblage was recovered from the excavation (8 kg+). The material has a clear chronological focus in the Iron Age and Romano-British period. Pottery and animal bone are the only material types to occur in any significant quantities, with other material types represented by small or negligible quantities. Two fragments of human bone were present in Iron Age features. These were found in domestic settings, rather than formal funerary contexts. A fragment of human skull was found in a posthole and the tibia of a neonate was deposited in an Iron Age pit.

The environmental evidence retrieved from the site was very sparse and poorly preserved. The charred plant remain assemblages are indicative of background crop processing activities, which are broadly consistent with an Iron Age or Romano-British chronology due to the presence of hulled wheats such as emmer and spelt. A couple of samples had rye and naked wheat remains, suggesting post-Romano-British activity in the area also.