Monument record 5488/0/2 - Early Bronze Age post alignment, Stanwick Quarry

A line of oak posts was found during a watching brief undertaken prior to gravel extraction at Stanwick Quarry. The posts were radiocarbon dated to the early Bronze Age.

{1} Several oak posts with their bases embedded in concreted gravel were noticed whilst digging out the oxbow channel (HER ref 2425/0/20). Their exact location was not recorded although they certainly came from the eastern arm of the oxbow channel.
Their upper parts had been encased in grey/black palaeochannel silts while the clean concreted gravels around their bases suggest that they had been driven into clean natural gravels and not palaeochannel silts. The disposition of the individual posts is unknown, but the consistent appearance of the concreted gravel around their bases suggests that they had probably stood in a line running along the eastern margin of the oxbow channel. The six posts had been dug out in a length of c10m, suggesting that they may have been closely spaced at intervals of only c1.6m. Whether there was only a single short length, or whether this may have been the only recognised part of a more extensive line of posts is unknown.
The blocks of concreted gravel stood up to 0.76m high and 0.75m in diameter, with the posts being encased by a layer of gravel 0.1-0.2m thick. It would appear that these had been concreted by the action of acids from the wood reacting with the iron minerals in the gravel to iron-pan the gravel directly around the post. In all cases the posts were semi-decayed, and all sapwood had been lost, so no surface features survived.
The posts were all of the oak roundwood. They ranged from 1-1.5m in length and up to 0.2-0.3m in diameter. In all instances the upper end was irregular as a result of decay, indicating that the upper ends of the posts had once stood above water level. The bottom 0.4-0.6m of each post had been trimmed to a blunt point. The posts themselves were too decayed to retain any trace of how these points had been worked, but the inner surfaces of the casts formed by the concreted gravels showed that they had comprised several flat facets, typically five or six.
A sample from the outermost heartwood has been radiocarbon dated to 1600-1410 cal BC (68% confidence, 3220+/-70 BP, Beta-175526). This indicates that the post line was constructed in the early Bronze Age, some centuries after the demise of the palaeochannel and broadly contemporary with the early Bronze Age round barrows.

<1> Chapman, A., 2004, Prehistoric palaeochannels and a ring ditch at Stanwick Quarry, Northamptonshire (watching brief 2002-2004) (Article). SNN112189.

<1> Chapman, A., 2004, Prehistoric palaeochannels and a ring ditch at Stanwick Quarry, Northamptonshire (watching brief 2002-2004), p.13-14 (checked) (Full Report). SNN105065.

<2> CBA South Midlands Group, 2003, South Midlands Archaeology: CBA Group 9 Newsletter, 33/55 (checked) (Journal). SNN103380.

Record last edited

Sep 17 2021 12:28PM