Monument record 2580/0/9 - Iron Age enclosure and Early Saxon sunken featured buildings

Archaeological investigation identified a possible Iron Age enclosure and the truncated remains of two Anglo-Saxon sunken-featured buildings. The articulated remains of an adult male were found in the base of one of the buildings.

{1} At the far west of the field was an isolated discontinuous enclosure, more accurately described as a segmented enclosure, orientated on a different axis to the activity to the east. This may suggest it belonged to a different phase of activity, possibly Iron Age. The fill contained cattle skulls perhaps as structured deposits, but no other artefacts, perhaps suggesting that it was located some distance from settlement, perhaps a stock enclosure.


{2, 3} A small excavation was undertaken prior to residential development. The remains of part of an enclosure was dated to the Iron Age by a single sherd of pottery. A further pair of cattle skulls were found in one of the ditch terminals. Two sunken featured buildings (SFB) (Grübenhauser) were identified during the excavation. Both sunken featured buildings had suffered a degree of truncation as a result of later agricultural ploughing. Pottery recovered from the fill of the SFBs, likely to derive from midden material, suggests an early to middle Anglo-Saxon date with the pottery from SFB2 probably dating from second half of the 5th century AD. Six objects of worked bone and antler were recovered from SFB 1 and have been dated to the early Anglo-Saxon period, with a date c AD 425-525 likely. This early date for these artefacts suggests the SFBs went out of use c AD 500.

The remains of an adult male individual had been placed in the base of one of the SFBs, after the destruction of the building but before the main pit had been backfilled. No artefacts were found with the remains of the individual, though the upper part of the skeleton had been lost to modern ploughing. Whilst the precise stratigraphic relationship between the skeleton and the Anglo-Saxon SFB remains unclear, it appears likely that they were broadly contemporary.

<1> Walker, C. & Jones, C., 2011, Archaeological evaluation on land at Overstone Leys, Overstone, Northamptonshire Phase 3, p. 24 (Report). SNN107903.

<2> Chinnock C., 2017, Archaeological excavation on land at Overstone Leys (Phase 1), Northampton, Northamptonshire, November 2016 (Report). SNN110783.

<3> Crank, N. (Editor), 2018, South Midlands Archaeology (48), p. 66 (Journal). SNN111393.

Record last edited

Mar 31 2026 2:42PM