Friday, May 15, 2009

The BGAS 1989 report

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A further abstract from the transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, this time from the 1989 season as follows:

"COBERLEY/BADGEWORTH, Crickley Hill, SO927161. During the 20th season of excavations a straight line of burnt hearths was found below the long mound, surrounded by very large number of finds, pottery, flint and bone.  The area is interpreted as a communal kitchen, of the final phase of the Neolithic settlement.  To the south of the entrance it was found that the buildings of the round-house settlement were confined to a strip about 15 m broad behind the rampart.  To the west lay two rows of square structures, their post holes containing barley grains, which seemed to be an extension of the zone of granaries of the hillfort settlement.  Towards the south of the excavated area, two-face hearth was dated by remnant magnetism to 1 BC +/- 2 years.  Nearby a penannular brooch and smooth, black, late-looking pottery were found.  Within the ramparts a quarry hollow, used as a rubbish tip during the last occupation of the hillfort, produced quantities of pottery and animal bone.  The hollow had ultimately been utilised as the floor of a small hut, walled in stone.  The structure resembles the sub-Roman/Dark Age buildings found 80 m to the south in the lee of the rampart.  Several sherds of Roman greyware were uncovered immediately to the west of it."

The date seems curiously, nay perhaps even spuriously, precise...  one suspects a typographical error?

1 comment:

Kirst@Crickley said...

The precise date is correct - within the date range obtained from archaeomagnetic dating of the hearth in the area of the main entrance. See Dixon 1994 (in Shiela Esdon's section at the end, I think)
Apologies for a Wiki ref., but it provides a better explanation than I could!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeomagnetic_dating