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Recent Iron Age Discoveries in Oxfordshire and North Berkshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Extract

An early volume of the Society's Proceedings contains Stephen Stone's record of his archaeological observations in the parish of Stanlake, Oxfordshire, and the immediate neighbourhood. The record as published is of a mixed nature, and at times it is quite difficult to disentangle the various periods to which the subject of his explorations belonged, though through no actual fault of his own, but rather because, at the date at which he wrote, archaeological knowledge had not advanced to a point at which an exact interpretation of the material was possible. Thus his account of a British village is almost inextricably mixed up with that of what we can now recognize to be circular trenches of a Bronze Age culture, and their close proximity to one another has perhaps added to the confusion. At the present day we can clearly realize that we have to do with two distinct cultures, even though actually they may not have been separated by any great distance of time; and that in spite of the fact that the pottery found in the British village is passed over with the barest notice, and only a few pieces have been preserved to give us a clue to its character. But that the village belonged to the Iron Age is established both by the description of the pits from which it came and also by the recovery from one of these pits of an iron knife complete with bone handle (pl. iv, 1), such as can be closely paralleled by a specimen from the Marne region. Two vases are preserved in the Ashmolean Museum (pl. iv, 2): one formerly in Mr. James Parker's collection is labelled Stanlake, and one given by Stone's executors came probably from this same site; though not very distinctive, both serve to corroborate the evidence of the knife. Vases obtained by Rolleston from a site in the parish of Wytham, Berkshire, fall into the same category (pl. iv, 3).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1935

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References

page 30 note 1 1st ser. iv, p. 92.

page 30 note 2 de Mortillet, A., Le Muséepréhistorique, pl. xcv, no. 1190Google Scholar.

page 30 note 3 Scientific Papers and Addresses, ii, 940.

page 30 note 4 Antiq. Journ. xi, 382 ff.

page 31 note 1 Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society's Papers and Proceedings, x, 178.

page 32 note 1 Cp. Stanlake, , Proc. Soc. Ant. 1st ser. iv, 97Google Scholar.

page 33 note 1 Cp. Stanlake, , op. cit. iv, 95Google Scholar: ‘… another circular excavation, 3 feetin depth, containing nothing but a dryish earth of a light grey colour’.

page 34 note 1 These pits are designated by the letter W to distinguish them from others at the east end of the modern village, to which the letter E is given.

page 34 note 2 Antiq. Journ. xi, 399.

page 34 note 3 Proc. Soc. Ant. 1st ser. iv, 95.

page 34 note 4 Wilts. Arch. Mag. xlii, 457; xliii, 59.

page 36 note 1 Compare once more Stephen Stone's observations at Stanlake, , loc. cit. 95Google Scholar, with the same questions left unanswered.

page 36 note 2 To whom I am greatly indebted for facilities granted for exploration of the site.

page 37 note 1 The depths recorded on this site do not include the top soil, which was 12–15 in. thick before removal.

page 38 note 1 Cp. Stanlake, pit no. 4 (Proc. Soc. Ant. 1st ser. iv, 95).

page 41 note 1 Excavations at Hengistbury Head, Hampshire. Report of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries, no. 3, 1915.

page 41 note 1 For the form, compare Park Brow (Archaeologia, lxxvi, 17, fig. 5).