Iron Age Ritual, a Hillfort and Evidence for a Minster at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

by Mike Farley, Gillian Jones

The excavation of an area within the grounds of the Prebendal, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, adjacent to the parish church of St Mary's, showed that the town, which lies on a slight spur, is sited within a univallate Iron Age hillfort. Early-Middle Iron Age activity included the creation of a notable ritual area contaning the burials of four children and a young woman, most accompanied by animals; and a 'bone mass' containing animal bone, mostly disarticulated. Within a generation or so of the deposit's creation, within the first half of the 4th century BC, a univallate hillfort was constructed which did not continue into the later Iron Age. Early in the Middle Saxon period a palisade trench was dug into the hillfort's ditch, which was replaced by a ditch in the 8th century. Both palisade and ditch were almost certainly the boundaries of an early minster church and it is very likely that the former existence of the hillfort influenced its siting here. An unusual piece of Merovingian glass with a moulded cross on its base is likely to have been one of the minster's possessions. The extensive minster cemetery and later Saxon development of the town is briefly noted. A significant Saxo-Norman grain deposit which has been radiocarbon dated to the 11th-12th centuries is described.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to the excavation and to Aylesbury and its early prehistory
The town and the excavation
Early Prehistory
Worked flint
Beaker sherds

2. The Iron Age Hillfort
Introduction
The hillfort ditch
The primary ditch and a human skull on its base
An Iron Age recut of the primary ditch
The problem of the accompanying rampart
Subfossil molluscan fauna from a section through the ditch (Diane FitzMaurice)
Finds from the hillfort ditch
Iron Age pottery (Barbara Hurman)
Pottery Fabrics
‘Loomweight‘
Clay slingshot
Slag
Animal bone from the Iron Age ditch (Gillian Jones)
Human bone from the recut ditch (C. Osborne)
Charred plant remains from the ditch (Lisa Moffett)
Summary of the hillfort defence

3. The Iron Age ritual introduction and description of human and animal remains
Introduction
The human remains from the ritual place (G. G. Jones and M. Farley, including identifications by C. Osborne)
Method
Human 1
Human 2
Human 3
Human 4
Human 5
Other human bones from the ritual deposit
Summary of human bone from the ritual deposit
The Animal Bone from the ritual deposit (G. G. Jones)
Introduction
Method
Articulated groups associated with Human Burials 1 to 5
Animals associated with Human Burial 1
Animals associated with Human Burial 2
Animals associated with Human Burial 3
Animals probably associated with Human Burial 4
Animals associated with Human Burial 5
Discussion of the articulated animal remains associated with humans
Description of the eastern bone mass
The identification of sheep and goat
Evidence for season, from the age at death of the sheep (goat)
The size of the sheep
Other species from the ritual deposit
Pathology
Bones from the upper layers of the ritual deposit and intrusive features
Comparison with other sites
An Iron Age fishbone (Andrew K. G. Jone)

4. Other finds from the ritual deposit and further environmental evidence
The pottery from the ritual deposit (Barbara Hurman and Michael Farley)
Illustrated pottery from the ritual deposit
The cultural affinity of the pottery from the ritual deposit
Other finds from the ritual deposit (Fig. 46)
Antler combs
Copper alloy
Iron
Flint
Stone not native to the site
Further environmental evidence from the ritual deposit
Charred plant remains (Lisa Moffett)
Wood charcoal macro-remains (Phil Austin)
Introduction
Methodology
Results
Discussion
Taphonomy and fragment condition
Wood use and resource management
The contemporary vegetation
Parasitological analysis

5. Radiocarbon dating of the skull from the hillfort ditch and human and animal bone from the ritual deposit (John Meadows, Michael Farley, Gillian Jones, Christopher Bronk Ramsey and Gordon Cook)
Introduction
Objectives
Approach to sample selection
Laboratory measurement
Results
Interpretation
The Bayesian approach

6. Discussion of the ritual deposit
The character of the ritual deposit
Other human bone from the site and a radiocarbon determination
Comparable discoveries in England
What kind of ‘ritual’ took place at Aylesbury?

7. The hillfort and its region
The interior of the hillfort
Two pits adjacent to the ritual deposit and a post-hole
Finds from the two pits
a. Pottery
b. Other finds
c. Charcoal
d. Animal bone (G. G. Jones)
e. Fish bone (Andrew K. G. Jone)
A post-hole (?)
Residual Iron Age finds
Pottery (Barbara Hurman)
Quern
The extent of the hillfort
The hillfort interior
The skull in the ditch, the date of construction of the fort and its period of use
Aylesbury hillfort in its hillforts and settlements

8. Roman period evidence
Introduction
Pottery
Roman building material (Simon Smithson) [with additions]
Other finds
Aylesbury and the surrounding area during the Roman period

9. Early Saxon ...

184 pages, Hardcover

First published July 31, 2012