SNN110386 - An Iron Age and Roman settlement to the north-west of Crick, Northamptonshire: excavations in 2012-13

Excavations prior to housing development to the north-west of Crick located settlement evidence dating from the Iron Age through to the early Roman period, as well as evidence of Middle Bronze Age activity with the discovery of a probable burnt mound on the southern extremity of the site. Burnt mounds are uncommon features in Northamptonshire and this one, with an associated stake- or post-built structure, brings the total to three from recent work in the area. An Iron Age settlement enclosure, built over earlier Iron Age ditches, contained the remains of ring gullies (roundhouses) and several ancillary buildings or structures represented by ditches and postholes. The inside of the enclosure was reorganised in the Roman period, with a ditch bisecting the interior and truncating earlier Iron Age features. A relatively small amount of pottery, with little definition, and animal bone was recovered, but the environmental evidence was good and points to a mixed pastoral/agricultural economy. Pottery shows that the main chronological period of use was in the earlier Roman period, with no indications for activity beyond c. AD 200, suggesting settlement ceased around this time. The enclosure ditch gradually silted up, its banks slumped inwards and a later trackway cuts through its south-eastern side. A small amount of Anglo-Saxon pottery in later features from across the site, including what may have been a quarry pit, shows that there was later activity.