Late Iron Age to Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Settlement at Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire

REVIEW BY ANDY CHAPMAN

This monograph does everything that it says on the packaging in the quoted book review. It contains, ‘high quality data with extensive and thorough reporting by artefact/ecofact specialists’. Unfortunately, with one outstanding exception, the archaeology itself is largely uninspiring. There are late Iron Age pit groups and early to middle Roman enclosures and boundary ditches. The exception is the ‘semi-subterranean structure’: a large stone-lined pit and an access ramp. On the floor of the pit there was placed a T-shaped arrangement of rotary querns, two upper and three lower stones. Two stones form a working pair, and all had been used and were still functional. This deposit is unique, and its meaning can be the subject for discussion and debate. Whether, as claimed in the cover review, the site ‘deserves publishing for this one feature alone’, may be true, but at £56 for a paper copy and £44 for a PDF, the sales will inevitably be largely limited to library collections.

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ISBN 978-1398510104