Time Team - Blacklands, Upper Row Farm, Laverton, Somerset - Assessment of the Results from the Archaeological Evaluation

Wessex Archaeology

No features of conclusive Iron Age date were identified during the evaluation, but residual Iron Age and Early Romano-British material recovered from a discrete central area of the site suggests this formed the focus of early occupation. Most of the excavated features comprised ditches or robbed-out foundation trenches. Although most of the artefactual material recovered indicates a later 3rd-4th century date, this relates to their cessation of use rather than that of their formation, and at least some may have been extant from the Late Iron Age and have functioned across an extended time period.

The major period of activity on the site lay in the later 3rd and 4th centuries AD. Evidence from the well sealed below the ‘gatehouse’ (excavated by BCAS) indicates the stone structure was not erected before the 3rd century and suggests the main phase of ‘aggrandizement’ on the site occurred in this period.

The finds assemblage does not suggest that the settlement was of particularly high status or special function, and the animal bone assemblage suggests a continuation of Late Iron Age animal husbandry practices with a low level of ‘Romanisation’. The impression is of a thriving Iron Age settlement, showing a continuation of occupation throughout the Romano-British period, with a slow shift in focus of the settlement further north over time.