SNN112128 - Stanwick Quarry, Northamptonshire. Raunds Area Project: Phasing the Iron Age and Romano-British settlement at Stanwick, Northamptonshire (Excavations 1984-1992). Archaeological report: Volume 2

Extensive excavations at Stanwick, orthamptonshire (SP972716) were carried out in advance of gravel extraction between 1984 and 1992. Extensive and productive in their own right, in the broader context of the Raunds Area Project they offer a unique opportunity to examine the development of Iron Age and Romano-British rural settlement, society and economy in a landscape setting and in the context of earlier and later evidence for settlement and agriculture. This report describes the early Iron Age to fifth/sixth century AD phases of the site. The phasing methodology is outlined, including the problems encountered and solutions reached. Fields and droveways of mid/late Bronze Age date formed the backdrop to scattered occupation from the earliest Iron Age and continued to influence the landscape. An unenclosed settlement developed in an organised landscape from the middle Iron Age. A circular enclosure containing a single structure lay north-east of the main occupation during the late Iron Age. The trackways and enclosures established in the first century AD formed the framework for the development of an agricultural village in the late first to third centuries AD. Stone construction was gradually introduced in buildings and yard walls replaced ditches, but circular buildings persisted alongside rectilinear. More complex building types appeared from the mid third century AD, and one aisled building was increasingly elaborated, finally being incorporated into a corridor villa in the late fourth century AD. This was accompanied by significant change in the settlement layout – the villa was fronted by a large enclosure which cut across existing boundaries, and nearby building groups declined or went out of use. Occupation continued in well into the fifth century AD, but with a marked change in character. The villa enclosure remained in use and burials were placed along the outside of its wall as late as the mid fifth or sixth century AD.