Description
In this issue:
– FINDING DUROPOLIS: A new kind of Iron Age settlement
– THE MILL’S TALE: Ditherington and the Industrial Revolution
– THE MYSTERY IN THE MARSH: Exploring an Anglo-Saxon island at Little Carlton
– FAST TRACK TO THE PAST: Celebrating Crossrail’s archaeology
Plus: News, Reviews, Comment, Sherds, Odd Socs, and more!
From the Editor:
Mention Iron Age settlement, and most people’s minds turn to hillforts, oppida, or even the evocatively named banjo enclosures. One thing all of these sites have in common is earthworks that encircle or at least sketch out the bounds of occupation. ‘Duropolis’ is different. Excavations at Winterborne Kingston are revealing a dense cluster of roundhouses seemingly lacking anything that might pass for defences. Inside this settlement, the inhabitants committed to the earth mysterious skeletons created from a medley of different animals.
Hybridisation of another kind was under way at Ditherington during the height of the Industrial Revolution. Replacing wood with iron created a mill that has been f√™ted as ‘the father of the skyscraper’. We take a look at the buildings that fearlessly pushed the boundaries of design to realise the potential of new technology.
There has been no shortage of realising potential at Little Carlton. An eye-catching array of Anglo-Saxon finds from the parish pointed to the presence of an important site. Now excavation has revealed an island settlement, complete with a quay to help bind its inhabitants into the wider world.
Connectivity is a perennial problem, as London’s Crossrail project demonstrates. This audacious scheme has produced vivid tableaux of activity stretching back as far as the last Ice Age, allowing us to explore London from below.
Matt Symonds
Cover Date: Apr-2016, Volume 27 Issue 1