SNN110428 - Late Iron Age and early Roman settlement at School Lane, Hartwell, Northamptonshire 2015

An area of late Iron Age/early Roman settlement was occupied for a short period around the late 1st century BC to the middle of the 1st century AD, with abandonment occurring shortly after the Conquest. Two adjacent enclosures were defined by partial arcs of deep curvilinear ditches. Within and between them were some subsidiary linear and curvilinear gullies, and a few pits. The features produced a small assemblage of late Iron Age hand-built wares and a larger group of wheel-finished vessels dating to the early to mid-1st century AD. The deposition of two complete upper stones from rotary querns may define the abandonment of Iron Age customs and the adoption of a Romanised lifestyle. The environmental evidence suggests that this was probably a pastoral settlement with the surrounding landscape a mixture of grass and woodland. Remains of a small late medieval building, 14th-16th centuries, were probably part of a dispersed settlement alongside a hollow-way, as shown on a map of 1727.