Archaeological Investigations on the A34 Newbury Bypass, Berkshire/Hampshire, 1991–7
Vaughan Birbeck
Description
Archaeological investigations along the route of the A34 Newbury Bypass employed a staged approach to assess the likely impact of the road on archaeological remains and allow appropriate mitigation strategies to be developed. This process confirmed the existence of archaeological remains at ten sites, ranging in date from the Mesolithic to the medieval period.
At Lambourn Valley, a 'home base' site of later Mesolithic date was excavated. Evidence for Neolithic and Bronze Age activity comprised a flint scatter at Curridge Road, Middle Bronze Age features at Swilly Copse, and a group of Middle and Late Bronze Age features at Bath Road.
Romano-British sites at Bagnor Road, Enborne Road and Elmore Plantation appeared to represent farmsteads of unknown size; the Enborne Road site included material of early Roman (pre-Flavian) date. Much-disturbed Romano-British remains at Great Pen Wood were of uncertain function.
Three sites of medieval date were investigated. The remains at Hill's Pightle probably represented a small croft or farmstead, situated in a chalkland dry valley. At Enborne Street and Wheatlands Lane the sites produced large quantities of pottery and tile dating to the 13th–14th centuries, and are thought to represent a dispersed ceramics industry exploiting the London Clay.
The bypass corridor crosses a number of topographical/geological zones, the archaeological potential of some of which was already well established, while little was known of that of others owing to a lack of previous archaeological work. The archaeological investigations have provided an opportunity to consider the evolution of the landscape and the part that people have played in its management and inhabitation. The results of the investigations are presented in a descriptive text intended to be understandable to a wide readership, with more detailed and specialist reports available as a separate volume.
Details
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| Jan. 1, 2000 | Wessex Archaeology | 72 | 1-874350-34-5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Copyright © Wessex Archaeology. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||