Silchester: The Landscape Setting of the Iron Age Oppidum and Roman City

From the Neolithic to the Middle Ages

Michael Fulford, Catherine Barnett, Nicholas Pankhurst, Daniel Wheeler

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9798888570418
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: Social Sciences

Silchester: The Landscape Setting of the Iron Age Oppidum and Roman City is the definitive report on the Silchester Environs Project, which combined extensive fieldwork and prospection to examine the Iron Age hinterland of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester), its settlement pattern, economy and development. The landscape setting of the Iron Age oppidum and Roman city of Calleva was initially explored through analysis of the available aerial photography and LiDAR data over c. 1000 km2. Focusing on a 50 km square centred on Calleva, six locations with suspected later prehistoric enclosures were sampled by coring and excavation and accompanied by extensive programmes of radiocarbon dating and environmental, especially pollen, analysis. Phases of activity and/or settlement were followed by abandonment and the regeneration of the woodland. Neolithic and Bronze Age activity was identified, but the first permanent settlements appeared to be of Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age date. The period with the most numerous settlements is the Middle Iron Age (4th to 2nd century BC), which was characterised by hillforts and smaller ditched enclosures. Their abandonment was once again followed by woodland regeneration. At the end of the 1st century BC new settlements were founded, including the 38 ha defended oppidum in a wooded and otherwise empty landscape. A territory with a radius of c. 2 km and devoid of individual farmsteads was established around the oppidum to provide land for cultivation and grazing and it was retained with the founding of the Roman city. This territory corresponds approximately with the combined present-day parishes of Mortimer West End and Silchester. The charcoal assemblages show evidence for the management of the woodlands including for the preparation of charcoal from the Late Iron Age though the Roman and into the medieval period. Dated charcoal shows continued activity in the Environs in the post-Roman and early medieval periods including the re-occupation of the hillfort at Pond Farm.

Table of contents

• Silchester: The Landscape Setting of the Iron Age Oppidum and Roman City
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. The Silchester Iron Age Environs Project in Context
• 2. The Study Area
• 3. Bridle’s Copse, Brocas Lands, Wood Farm and the Silchester Linears
• 4. Pond Farm
• 5. Pamber Forest
• 6. Simm’s Copse
• 7. Windabout Copse, the Central and Southern Settlement Enclosures
• 8. Nelson’s Field, Church Lane Farm, Silchester
• 9. Windabout Copse North, the Late Iron Age Chamber Burial and its Environs
• 10. Overview of the Pottery
• 11. Woodland Structure: Management and Exploitation, and Use of Wild Resources
• 12. The Plant Macro-Fossil Evidence
• 13. Agriculture and the Landscape
• 14. Discussion and Synthesis
• 15. Conclusions
• Appendix 1. Analytical Earthwork Survey
• Appendix 2. Geoarchaeology
• Appendix 3. Wood Charcoal and Waterlogged Wood Assemblages
• Appendix 4. Radiocarbon Dates
• Appendix 5. Pollen and Micro-Charcoal Analysis Methods
• Appendix 6. The Flint
• Appendix 7. Pottery: Methodology and Fabric and Form Descriptions
• Appendix 8. Wood Farm: the Micromorphology
• Appendix 9. Charred and Waterlogged Seed and Plant Remains
• Bibliography