Five years ago, in CA 339, we ran a feature about excavations associated with the road improvement works by National Highways (formerly Highways England) on the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon. Led by the MOLA Headland Infrastructure Consortium (MHI) and covering over 234ha, these investigations allowed archaeologists to explore 6,000 years of human history on a landscape scale. Between 2016 and 2018, over 40 separate excavations revealed sites ranging from the deserted medieval village of Houghton and an Anglo-Saxon settlement of over 50 buildings to an unusually regular Roman farmstead that may have controlled local distribution of food and other resources.
One of the other key discoveries highlighted by the team was an early medieval defended settlement near Conington where, as the site was going out of use, a large posthole was repurposed as a grave into which the body of a young woman had been placed face-down. This positioning was unusual, and where it is seen in the archaeological record, it is sometimes interpreted as evidence of punishment or a lack of respect for the deceased. At the time of reporting, no detailed skeletal analysis of the Conington individual had been carried out, and little was known about her other than the fact that radiocarbon dating suggested she had probably died between AD 680 and 880. Now, however, her remains have been studied as part as MHI’s ongoing post-excavation analysis of finds from the A14 works, allowing some of her story to be pieced back together for the first time.
We now know that the Conington individual was a teenager, aged around 15 when she died, and while her life had been short, it had been one of ill health and hardship. Her teeth preserve evidence of childhood malnutrition, while she had also suffered from spinal joint disease made worse by carrying out hard manual labour from an early age. These clues suggest that she had been of low social status within her community; a stark contrast to the apparently elite function of the site where she was buried. In Old English, Conington (cynings ton) literally means ‘king’s town’, and considerable effort had gone into the defended settlement’s construction, encircling it with impressive ditches and securing its entrance with an imposing gatehouse.
Excavating West Sussex