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Iron Age settlements on the gravel terraces of the Upper Thames Valley are well understood, thanks to the excavation of a number of such sites, mostly in advance of mineral extraction, since the mid- 20th century (see CA 86 and CA 121). By contrast, relatively few settlements of this period have been investigated in the Cotswolds – but in 2019-2020 excavations by Archaeological Research Services Ltd offered the opportunity to add to this patchy picture.
Undertaken ahead of a housing development on the southern side of Bodicote (commissioned by Barratt Homes and David Wilson Homes Ltd), our investigations targeted a cluster of enclosures and pits detected through geophysical survey. These features lay within a gently undulating landscape sloping towards Sor Brook, a tributary of the River Cherwell, less than 1km to the south, and proved to represent evidence of a middle Iron Age farmstead, as well as earlier remains (see ‘Earlier activity’ box below). Although these traces had been truncated by medieval ridge-and-furrow farming and later ploughing, they have allowed illuminating insights into Iron Age life and death on the edge of the Cotswolds.
Archaeological insights, chemical clues
The Iron Age settlement was represented by a diverse array of features, including ditches, enclosures, and 240 pits, which appear to have developed over four discernible phases. The earliest surviving feature was an outer ditch defining the site’s south-western, western, and northern limits; broadly contemporary with this were at least three pits, an elliptical enclosure, and two small, curved ditches. Next came a series of four rectilinear enclosures whose construction cut the three pits mentioned above. The western edge of this complex formed a corridor with the outer boundary ditch, running north–south and ultimately entering the southernmost enclosure, and each of these ditched spaces also had an entrance on its eastern side.
The lines of the four enclosures were continuous with each other, and these ditches were filled with the same kind of material, suggesting that they had been created and went out of use at the same time. At least some, if not most, of the pits identified on the site also date to this phase, including a cluster located north-east of the eastern enclosure, and five within the northernmost one. In the third phase of the settlement’s evolution, the enclosures were taken out of use and their ditches deliberately infilled, but this was not the end of Iron Age activity on the site. At this time, the outer boundary ditch was re-excavated, and more pits were dug, some of them cutting into the now-defunct enclosures. Finally, the outer ditch was re-cut once more, and another ditch – possibly part of a new enclosure – was created to the north.
As for what took place within this mass of features, geochemical analysis was able to provide some suggestions. Using a hand-held portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, the project team targeted 66 sample points across the entire area of excavated Iron Age features, in order to explore what activities may have been carried out in different parts of the settlement. This survey found that high phosphorus readings – which point to the presence of organic materials, especially middens and faeces – were associated with the area around the rectilinear enclosures, and also the ‘corridor’ running between them and the boundary ditch, which has now been interpreted as a livestock droveway. Combined with these chemical clues, archaeological evidence indicates that at least the southernmost of the enclosures was used for managing livestock, and analysis of animal bones suggests that cattle and sheep/goats were reared on the site. As for the outer ditch itself, phosphorous values to the west of its line were very low, while those to the east were notably elevated, indicating that it had indeed served as a partition, confining the foci of occupation, activity, and waste-disposal within the farmstead.
The area around the enclosures also produced elevated zinc values, and the only trace of tin from the site – both indicative of processes associated with human activity and settlement – as well as the highest levels of calcium, which could have come from bone and other organic waste discarded in middens, privies, and areas for food preparation, or from burials. The distribution of strontium mirrors that of zinc which could be indicative of enclosed areas with considerable cover. Low levels of copper, however, indicate that non-ferrous metalworking was not carried out in this zone.
Equally absent, despite this wealth of data demonstrating a human presence within the enclosures, was any direct evidence of domestic structures. Although relatively few comparable examples have been found in the Cotswolds, sub-rectangular enclosed settlements with concentrations of pits just outside them are known from other sites in the region, for example at Guiting Power and Rollright. It is possible, then, that at least one of the Bodicote enclosures may have once contained dwellings (pits within the northernmost one contained domestic refuse) but their footprints have long since been swept away by medieval and later ploughing. Alternatively, the farmstead’s domestic structures could have been located outside the excavated area.
Earlier activity
The story of the Bodicote site does not begin in the Iron Age. Our earliest traces of human activity date back much further, to the late Mesolithic period, in the form of waste flakes/blades from flint-knapping and two narrow-blade microliths, which were recovered from ploughsoil and the fills of later features. These flints speak of transient activity by a small number of individuals, perhaps stopping to repair their equipment during a hunting expedition. They are typical of other such assemblages recovered from the Cotswolds, suggesting that the uplands might have been traditional hunting grounds at this time, exploited by nomadic groups moving through the wooded ecosystem and staying in one place for relatively short periods of time.
Leaping forward to the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age, the highest point of the site was crowned by a large causewayed ring ditch some 42m in diameter – within the expected range for a henge monument from this period. Two distinct sets of entrances could be seen on opposing sides, and the fills of its ditch produced three unretouched flint flakes of late Neolithic/early Bronze Age date. Another unretouched flake, and a flint cutting blade of the same period, were recovered from a pit located inside one of the entrances, where they had been potentially deliberately placed; the pit’s excavation and infilling may have been part of the founding, use, or closing down of the monument.
Just to the south-east were two rather smaller ring ditches: the fills of both produced more late Neolithic/early Bronze Age unretouched flakes, while one also contained a small amount of charred grain that was radiocarbon-dated to 1051-910 BC, suggesting that it had been filled in during the late Bronze Age. Although both rings were heavily truncated by later ploughing, there is evidence that their interiors had once contained a bank or mound. Human cremation deposits, in some cases associated with collared urns placed in relatively shallow pits, have been found within round barrows and cairns elsewhere on the Cotswolds, and so it is possible that the Bodicote ring ditches also represent the remains of burial mounds.
Clearly, this part of the Cotswolds was a focus for activity during the 4th to early 2nd millennia BC: a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and the ploughed-out remains of two more possible round barrows were already recorded in the field immediately to the west of the site, and the Bodicote finds represent an important addition to this picture. As well as a series of pits pre-dating the Iron Age farmstead, over 150 examples of late Neolithic/early Bronze Age flint debitage and tools were discovered during the excavations, including scrapers, piercers, cutting flakes, knives, and axe flakes, as well as both oblique and barbed and tanged arrowheads. The presence of arrowhead types that date to both the late Neolithic period and the early Bronze Age indicates that the other flints do not represent a single phase of activity on the site: they could instead reflect a series of occupational episodes in the 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC, potentially including domestic activity, but not necessarily on a permanent basis.
Picking through pits
While evidence for domestic structures was elusive, pits were much more abundant, representing the most frequently occurring feature investigated by the team. They were mostly arranged in clusters outside the four rectilinear enclosures, and their fills produced charred cereal remains dominated by hulled wheat as well as cleaned barley grains. It is thought that the pits were initially used (a few at a time) for storing grain, but were subsequently turned into places to dump domestic rubbish. These later fills were rich in charcoal and organic material, often containing pottery fragments and pieces of animal bone. Some of the bones were still partly articulated, with cut marks reflecting butchery, but there were also skeletons of entire animals including a dog, an immature sheep, and a fairly complete but portioned adult sheep whose discoloured bones appear to have been roasted; this last find is thought to represent a possible ‘structured deposit’ placed in the ground for a specific purpose.
Given the proximity of the pits and the enclosures, it is likely that these features were in use at the same time. From their contents, combined with possible signs of animal husbandry on the site, and an absence of evidence for specific craft activities (the only objects recovered from the site were an iron loop-headed spike, a fragment of folded copper-alloy sheet, and two bone items), we might deduce that the settlement’s economy was based on mixed farming. As for the farmstead’s longevity, three radiocarbon dates were obtained from the pits’ contents, yielding results of 386-206 BC, 386-204 BC, and 356-111 BC, while the majority of pottery sherds date to the middle to late Iron Age, although small quantities of early Iron Age material may also be present. From this, it appears that the settlement’s main phase of occupation may have lasted no longer than one or two generations, and it was probably abandoned during the late Iron Age – the creation of new ditches, however, indicates that the establishment of two new enclosures or fields on its northern edge during the last discernible phase of occupation may have been associated with another nearby farmstead.
Evidence of illness?
It was not only domestic waste and articulated animals that had been placed in the pits. Several of these features – indistinguishable in every other way from their neighbours – had undergone a third transformation, from storage space to rubbish pit to grave. Ten were found to contain complete skeletons, while an eleventh produced a single fragment of human skull. Where sex could be determined, male and female individuals were fairly evenly represented (numbering four and five respectively, and two indeterminate), and there was also a broad spread of ages, encompassing a young child, an adolescent, two young adults, and six middle-aged adults. The prevalence of young adults and young middle adults, making up 55% of the inhumations, is contrary to the expected ‘attritional mortality profile’, where particularly vulnerable members of a community such as the very old and the very young would typically dominate. Perhaps this might hint that burial within the Bodicote pits had been very selective; it might also be significant that the non-adult burials were found in a cluster of adjacent pits, located just outside the north-west corner of the northernmost enclosure.
Nine of the individuals in the pits had been placed in a roughly crouched position, while the tenth was face-down – but closer examination revealed other intriguing insights into how they had been laid to rest. The positioning of limbs suggested that two individuals may have been bound when they entered the ground, while at least half of the bodies appear to have been lowered down into the pits using an under-arm hold, and subsequently left in uncorrected positions.
The placing of these people in former storage pits is not in itself unusual: such practices characterise Iron Age funerary traditions in much of southern Britain, together with the deposition of disarticulated body parts in a variety of contexts on occupation sites. Human pit burials have been found on a number of Iron Age farmsteads in the Upper Thames Valley, and so their discovery at Bodicote was not unexpected. What was more surprising, though, was the fact that many skeletons preserved possible evidence of infectious disease.
One young man appeared to have been suffering from a treponemal infection, a chronic disease of the skin and bones that is caused by the same group of bacteria as syphilis. It was noted that, among other pathological changes, his lower leg bones were bowed, with enlarged mid-sections. If the diagnosis is correct, he would be the first Iron Age example of someone with this disease identified in the British Isles. Eight other individuals showed abnormal changes to the cranium, vertebrae, limbs and ribs, suggestive of tuberculosis. Biomolecular and aDNA analysis is being undertaken to confirm this (we hope to bring you an update in a future issue of CA), but it is possible that TB may have been a constant part of life for the Bodicote community.
Although tuberculosis is often associated with the slum conditions of the Industrial Revolution (accounting for 25% of all deaths in Europe by the 19th century), it has a much longer history with humans. Evidence of the disease has been identified in ancient Egyptian mummies, and texts containing presumed descriptions of its symptoms survive from ancient China, Greece, and Rome. It is known to have been endemic in Iron Age continental Europe, but is less-documented in contemporary British burials: within these shores, the earliest confirmed case is that of a 30- to 40-year-old man who died c.400-230 BC, and whose skeleton was discovered during excavations at Tarrant Hinton, Dorset, between 1967 and 1985 (see CA 370).
The potential disease-markers were not the only thing that stood out about the burials, however. One woman was unique within the group, as her pit also contained other examples of intentionally placed skeletal material. These additional remains were not human, but animal: the complete, articulated skeleton of a dog was found at the bottom of the pit, and on top of this a horse skull (missing its lower jaw) had been placed. The woman’s crouched body had been laid directly on top of this curious arrangement, and the spatial relationships between all three suggests that each element had been rapidly added to the pit one after the other, rather than over a long period of time. This was also the only inhumation to contain an artefact: while the other pit burials were devoid of grave goods, a bone pin or toggle was found between the dog and horse remains. Moreover, it appears that this woman’s pit had not been immediately backfilled, or was only partly filled in, as her skull had become displaced, most likely shifted due to being gnawed by rodents.
Although her treatment in death was distinctive, the woman’s physical remains did not suggest that she would have stood out in her community. Osteological analysis indicates that in her early childhood (3-5 years old) this individual had experienced some form of physiological stress, which had disrupted the development of her tooth enamel. She had suffered, too, from a range of degenerative, metabolic, and infectious diseases throughout her life, as well as trauma sustained before and around the time of her death. However, most of these afflictions were noted among other individuals on the site as well – and nor was this woman an outsider to the group, as aDNA analysis revealed that she was a close relative (either the mother or daughter) of a young woman buried within another of the Bodicote pits. Her grave highlights how complex Iron Age funerary practices were, and how difficult it is to disentangle their meaning today.
Source: Rebecca Trow is Project Manager, Milena Grzybowska is Osteoarchaeologist/Senior Project Officer, Roger Doonan is Head of Innovation, and Robin Holgate is Research Associate at Archaeological Research Services Ltd.
All images: Archaeological Research Services Ltd
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