Farmsteads and Funerary Sites : The M1 Junction 12 Improvements and the A5–M1 Link Road, Central Bedfordshire

Jim Brown

• Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781789692617
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Contents Page
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Middle–late Bronze Age pits and undated pit alignments
• Chapter 3 Iron Age farming beside the Ouzel Brook
• Chapter 4 A late Iron Age/Roman cremation cemetery and settlement features at Harlington Road
• Chapter 5 Iron Age/Roman funerary sites in the valley of the Ouzel Brook
• Chapter 6 Late Iron Age/Roman trackways, boundaries and enclosures
• Chapter 7 Saxon funerary remains, pits, cultivation soils and medieval settlement
• Chapter 8 A late medieval potters’ waste dump near Nuppings Green, north of Toddington
• Bibliography
• Digital Data Package