SNN108363 - A Bronze Age Pit Deposit and Round Barrows Near Wootton, Northampton

An archaeological evaluation was carried out by Northamptonshire Archaeology on 180 hectares of open farmland to the north-east, east and south-east of Wootton, Northampton. Areas of archaeological remains had been identified from aerial photographs and geophysical survey, and these and the intervening areas were examined and characterised through the excavation of 306 trial trenches. This report focuses on the features of certain or likely Bronze Age date. At the northern end of the site, on the Hunsbury ridge, there are two or possibly three ring ditches, probably the remains of Bronze Age round barrows, one of which had been previously investigated. There was also a dispersed pattern of field or enclosure ditches of possible Iron Age date. On the lower slopes to the north of Wootton Brook there was a single pit, radiocarbon dated to the Early Bronze Age, containing a deposit of dark charcoal-rich soil, with a small amount of cremated bone, at least partly cattle bone, three flint arrowheads and a scraper. This pit joins the growing corpus of Neolithic and Bronze Age pits in the region located in recent years as chance finds during the investigation of extensive development sites. In the same area there was also an Iron Age ring ditch and several late Iron Age ditches. At the southern end of the site, on a low prominence south of Wootton Brook, a middle/late Iron Age settlement comprised a sub-rectangular enclosure as well as subsidiary enclosures and pits. An isolated ring ditch in this area may be either a Bronze Age ring ditch or part of the Iron Age complex.