Farmsteads And Funerary Sites The M1 Junction 12 Improvements And The A5 M1 Link Road Central Bedfordshire

Extensive excavations by MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) near Houghton Regis and Toddington, in south Central Bedfordshire, provide a detailed multi-period dataset for regional and national comparison. Evidence ranges from middle/late Bronze Age pits to medieval settlements.

All communities have a strong sense of identity with the area in which they live, which for England in the early medieval period manifested itself in a series of territorial entities, ranging from large kingdoms down to small districts known as pagi or regiones. This book investigates these small early folk territories, and the way that they evolved into the administrative units recorded in Domesday, across an entire kingdom - that of the East Saxons (broadly speaking, what is now Essex, Middlesex, most of Hertfordshire, and south Suffolk). A wide range of evidence is drawn upon, including archaeology, written documents, place-names and the early cartographic sources. The book looks in particular at the relationship between Saxon immigrants and the native British population, and argues that initially these ethnic groups occupied different parts of the landscape, until a dynasty which assumed an Anglo-Saxon identity achieved political ascendency (its members included the so-called "Prittlewell Prince", buried with spectacular grave-good in Prittlewell, near Southend-on- Sea in southern Essex). Other significant places discussed include London, the seat of the first East Saxon bishopric, the possible royal vills at Wicken Bonhunt near Saffron Walden and Maldon, and St Peter's Chapel at Bradwell-on-Sea, one of the most important surviving churches from the early Christian period.

This volume presents the results of archaeological investigations undertaken at a building site in Northampton in 2014. The location was of interest as it lay opposite the former medieval hospital of St. John, which influenced the development of this area of the town.

MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) undertook extensive excavations during the construction of two separate, but adjacent road schemes, some 4.5km apart near Houghton Regis and Toddington, in south Central Bedfordshire. Taken as a whole, the excavations provide a detailed multi-period dataset for regional and national comparison. The first evidence for occupation occurred in the middle/late Bronze Age comprising pits and clusters of postholes, including four-post and six-post structures. Two pit alignments, more than 2km apart, also indicate that land divisions were being established, and in the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age a significant new settlement emerged in the valley bottom. Parts of a further contemporary earlier-middle Iron Age settlement lay at the top of the valley but neither settlement extended into the Roman period. In the late Iron Age or early Roman period three or four new settlements emerged with occupation continuing into the late Roman period in at least one of these. Of particular interest was the recovery of two significant Aylesford-Swarling type cemeteries as well as a third cemetery which largely comprised unurned burials, including some busta, but with few accompanying grave goods. In the late 7th-century a small probable Christian conversion open-ground inhumation cemetery was established with burials accompanied by a range of objects, including a rare work box, knives, brooches, chatelaine keys and a spearhead. Parts of three medieval settlements were uncovered including one with a potters' working area.

This book explores the role of great hall complexes in kingdom formation through an expansive and ambitious study, incorporating new fieldwork, new quantitative methodologies and new theoretical models for the emergence of high-status settlements and the formation and consolidation of supra-regional socio-political units.

This excavation report is important for understanding the Early Historic Settlement of the Northern Isles. It contains results and analysis from the 1989-90 excavations on a ridge overlooking Scalloway on Shetland. They revealed a pattern of intense activity since the 1st century BC, and prior evidence of a cremation burial, probably Bronze Age. Successive phases of occupation were identified into the medieval period, including a broch occupied up to the 8th century, which seems to have been a mixed farming community which practised metalwork. No Viking settlement was found on site, but finds suggest one to have been situated nearby. A shortlived cemetery, probably medieval, and the 17th-century site which continues in use today complete the picture.

A total area of 3.1ha, taking in much of a settlement largely of the earlier Middle Iron Age, was excavated in 1998 in advance of development. The Iron Age settlement comprised several groups of roundhouse ring ditches and associated small enclosures forming an open settlement set alongside a linear boundary ditch.