SNN111730 - Late Iron Age and early Roman settlement at School Lane, Hartwell

Archaeological excavation was carried out by Northamptonshire Archaeology in 2010-11 on an area of late Iron Age to early Roman settlement, occupied for a short period around the late 1st century BC to the middle 1st century AD, with abandonment shortly after the Conquest. Arcs of deep curvilinear ditch apparently formed facades to two enclosures but with no surviving features to define the remainder of the circuits. Behind these facades 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, largely dumped in the upper fills of the enclosure ditches, apparently part of an episode of site clearance at abandonment. The deposition of two complete upper stones from rotary querns may relate to the abandonment of Iron Age customs and the adoption of a Romanised liefstyle at a new location. The environmental evidence suggests that this was probably a pastoral settlement, perhaps seasonal, with the surrounding landscape a mixture of grass and woodland, and perhaps subsidiary to a main settlement.