Neolithic, Bronze Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon Occupation and Bronze Age Burial at Ibsley Quarry, Ibsley, Ringwood, Hampshire (Paperback)

Excavation in advance of mineral extraction located on the eastern terrace of the river Avon at Ibsley, north of Ringwood, revealed a wide range of sites and finds. Two episodes dominated the cut deposits examined namely those in the Bronze Age and Roman periods. The site appears to have been in use for the whole of the Bronze Age, with the earlier Bronze Age represented by four ring ditches (the remains of levelled barrows) and a few pits. One of the ring ditches was revisited for use in the middle Bronze Age as an urnfield (cremation cemetery). A probable middle Bronze Age roundhouse and a few pits were superseded by much more intensive later Bronze Age occupation in the form of roundhouses, four-post structures (granaries?), pits and a fence. A notable feature of the middle Bronze Age was the finding of a small hoard of two bronze palstaves and an armlet.

Little is known of what might have happened on the site in the Iron Age, although it was perhaps then that the barrows were levelled (ploughed out). In the Roman period, the site became a farmstead surrounded by an organized landscape of paddocks and fields, with a stone-lined well, although any buildings seem to have been outside the area excavated.

Other periods were represented by small numbers of cut features, with earlier Neolithic pits containing plain ware and Ebbsfleet ware pottery, a possible late Neolithic pit circle, and an early Anglo-Saxon sunken-floored building. The Mesolithic period was represented by flintwork and the later medieval period, surprisingly, only by a hammered silver coin and a belt buckle. The fieldwork here complements the findings of earlier phases of investigation at the quarry to the east which led to the excavation of three Early Bronze Age ring ditches in 2001.