Middle and Late Iron Age Occupation on Land North of Croft Road, Spencers Wood, Reading, Berkshire (Paperback)

This volume details the archaeological excavation in advance of a develoopment to the south of Reading in Berkshire, of a Middle to Late Iron settlement comprising a round house and adjacent boundaries. Two main phases of activity were represented, dating from the 4th to the 1st century BC. Only very small quantities of finds were recovered but the pottery chronology is supported by six radiocarbon dates. Faunal remains did not survive but an extensive programme of soil sampling revealed no charred arable remains, which might be taken to indicate a pastoral economy. Of some note are two ball-like objects of fired clay, plausibly interpreted as slingshots. A waterhole also thought to have been constructed in the Middle Iron Age contained preserved organic remains and remained in use into early Roman times (confirmed by a radiocarbon date, as there was very little Roman pottery on the site). The waterlogged remains from the fills of the waterhole indicated a locally open environment but with mature oak woodland nearby. As with many Middle to Late Iron Age rural settlements, the site was abandoned before Roman influecnce came to be widely felt. The presence here of securely dated Middle Iron Age fields associated with a settlement adds to a surprisingly small corpus of such evidence for the region.