Later Neolithic Pits, a Bronze Age ring ditch and early Anglo-Saxon buildings at Braywick Park, Maidenhead, Berkshire (Paperback)

An open excavation revealed deposits that show a long but discontinuous use of the site from the later Neolithic through to the early Saxon period. Radiocarbon dates place a small cluster of pits containing Peterborough Ware pottery at the very start of the 3rd millennium BC. These are considered to represent rarely encountered occupation deposits of this period. More than a millennium later the site was used to construct one, possibly two ring ditches likely to represent now levelled Early Bronze Age burial mounds, though no burial deposits were revealed. The frequent presence of ring ditches on the gravel terraces of the Thames shows how densely used the valley was in the earlier part of the Bronze Age, despite meagre evidence for contemporary occupation sites. Finally, after another two millennia, the site was used for early Saxon occupation, in the form of six sunken-featured buildings and other features, which radiocarbon dating helped to show, were not all contemporary.