SNN115700 - Digital Archive from an Archaeological Excavation at Middlemore Site 8e, Daventry, Northamptonshire, July 2019

This digital archive contains images, CAD, site records and a report from an archaeological excavation in 2019 within the site Site 8e, Daventry, Northamptonshire. The work was undertaken by Oxford Archaeology between 03-Jul-2019 and 26-Jul-2019. Preceding geophysical survey and trial trench evaluation of the c 1.25ha site in 2019 established the presence of Iron Age remains and an undated trackway/road upon which two excavation areas, totalling c 5500m2, were subsequently targeted. A small quantity of residual worked flint of broadly prehistoric date provides evidence of a limited and perhaps transitory presence in the landscape during the prehistoric period. The remains of several late Iron Age/early Roman (c 50 BC-AD 120) ditches divided the landscape into rectilinear enclosures/fields, probably for agricultural purposes; no structural evidence suggestive of settlement was present. A small number of scattered pits and postholes are suggestive of isolated agricultural activity. A cluster of inter-cutting pits in the south-west containing small quantities of pottery, animal bone, fired clay and charred plant remains are suggestive of nearby settlement activity. Roman remains comprised a NE-SW aligned trackway/road formed of a metalled surface and two flanking ditches that probably had a drainage function. A very small quantity of Roman pottery suggests that it may have been in use during the early-middle Roman period. It is possible that the trackway/road influenced the layout of the late Iron Age/early Roman enclosure/field system to its south-east, though it appears to have continued in use after the cessation of the enclosures and perhaps formed part of a local network that connected to the nearby major Roman road of Watling Street. Remains of land use activity post-dating the Roman period were scarce and indicative of medieval/post-medieval agricultural activities.