SNN116982 - Northampton North-West Relief Road, Northamptonshire: Post-Excavation Assessment and Updated Project Design

This document comprises a post-excavation assessment and updated project design for a programme of archaeological excavation undertaken by Oxford Archaeology for Balfour Beatty (BB) on behalf of West Northamptonshire Council in advance of the construction of the Northampton North-West Relief Road. The route of the road was located within pasture and arable land within the NW-SE aligned valley of the Brampton Branch of the River Nene, and the archaeological investigations comprised five excavation areas targeted on the results of previous geophysical survey and trial-trench evaluation, all located the lower slopes and floodplain of the valley. The most significant discovery was a flint spread in Area E, and in particular its inclusion of a middle Mesolithic component, belonging to the Honey Hill phase. Pending technological analysis, the Honey Hill component of the assemblage cannot be fully quantified but given the number of diagnostic microliths, and other tools, attributable to the techno-complex it is likely to be significant. Although the type-site at Honey Hill lies only 12km to the north, it is known only from fieldwalking, as are most sites of this phase, and the Relief Road assemblage is only the second to be recovered from controlled excavation. Based on the presence of diagnostic tools and distinctive core types, the assemblage also included a seemingly larger component of late Mesolithic lithics. Elements of Neolithic and Bronze Age lithic technologies were also recorded. Within the scatter were five charcoal-rich pits, four discrete charcoal concentrations and three tree-thow holes, with a further pit at the northern edge of the flints and a pair of pits 20m north of this. These features are currently undated, and their contemporaneity with the flint scatter uncertain; this will require confirmation by radiocarbon dating in the instances with suitable material. One feature, pit 6035, contained exceptionally well-preserved remains of charred nuts and fruits, which had probably been roasted within the pit, although fragments of kiln furniture may indicate a later prehistoric or Roman date. In other excavation areas, evidence for activity before the middle Iron Age was limited to a single pit containing sherds from an early Bronze Age collared urn. Middle Iron Age settlement, comprising two possible roundhouses, some ditched boundaries and a large number of shallow pits, was uncovered in Area C, and part of a pit alignment of broadly contemporary date was exposed in the adjacent Area D. The pit alignment can be traced over a considerable distance in the geophysical survey at the adjacent development at Dallington Grange, where it forms part of a landscape of similar boundaries. Areas A and B were targeted on two areas of Iron Age and Roman settlement that form the eastern extent of more extensive enclosure complexes that were recorded by the Dallington Grange geophysical survey. A corndrying oven and (currently undated) cremation burials were found in Area A, and may indicate that this peripheral area was used for crop-processing and burial. Environmental remains preserved by waterlogging within enclosure ditches in Area A may provide valuable evidence as to how this floodplain-edge location was exploited. The excavation of a deep culvert beside Area E enabled the recording of a sequence of three palaeochannels, two representing former alignments of the Brampton Nene and one of an unnamed tributary. Samples of waterlogged plant remains from the channels returned radiocarbon dates in the Mesolithic period, middle Bronze Age and middle Iron Age. The channel with the Mesolithic date was recorded as cutting the Bronze Age Age channel, and its date will require confirmation by further scientific dating at the analysis stage to address this; if an early date is confirmed, the environmental evidence from the channel has good potential to provide important data on the landscape context of the flint scatter. Similarly, evidence from the other channels can elucidate the development of the Brampton Nene during the Bronze Age and Iron Age. The assessment presents the preliminary findings of the fieldwork, assesses the potential of the results to address research questions pertinent to current research agendas, and sets out the programme for analysis and dissemination. Given the quantity and character of the archaeological evidence excavated at this site, it is proposed that the results of the analysis should be published in the Oxford Archaeology Monograph, as a joint volume also incorporating the results of OA's nearby excavation at Buckton Fields.