FROM
BRONZE
AGE
ENCLOSURE
TO
ANGLO-SAXON
SETTLEMENT. ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS AT TAPLOW
HILLFORT, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 1999-2005 by T Allen, C Hayden and
H Lamdin-Whymark
Oxford: Oxford Archaeology (Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph no. 30). 2009. 222
pages, 62 figures, 32 plates, 54 tables. ISBN 978-1-90590509-6, hb, £20
CASTLE HILL AND ITS LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGICAL
INVESTIGATIONS AT THE WITTENHAMS, OXFORDSHIRE by T
Allen, K Cramp, H Lamdin-Whymark and L Webley
Oxford: Oxford Archaeology (Monograph no. 9). 2010. 286 pages, 80 colour plates, 104
figures, 52 tables. ISBN 978-0-904220-61-2, pb £9.95
Oxford Archaeology are one of the largest commercial units in British Archaeology and have
produced an exemplary series of publications over the last twenty years. These two volumes
represent a major contribution to what could be called the later prehistory of the middle
Thames area, though Taplow lies to the south of the Goring Gap and Castle Hill and the
Wittenhams to the north, so they are on either side of the boundary between the Middle and
Upper Thames. The primary focus of the excavation of both sites is a substantial enclosure
that straddles the Bronze to Iron Age transition. Both excavations also recovered vestigial
remains of earlier prehistoric settlement and later historic activity but this will not be the
principal focus for this review.
The circumstances of the excavations were quite different. The discoveries at Taplow were
the result of rescue excavations in advance of a commercial development in the gardens of
Taplow House. The house and its surroundings represent the last piece of undeveloped land
between Slough and Maidenhead and sit on the corner of a plateau, which forms the east
bank of the River Thames. The complexity and significance of the archaeological deposits
was not fully anticipated prior to the area stripping of the site and it was only possible to do a
limited amount of excavation on many of the features exposed. Some important areas had
also been significantly disturbed by earlier development.
In contrast the excavations at the Wittenhams took place in a rural landscape and were
primarily designed as a research project focussed on the interpretation, presentation and
management of an estate owned by the Northmoor Trust, an environmental charity. The
initial focus was Castle Hill, Wittenham Clumps, a fort located on a prominent chalk hill on
the south side of the Thames. However, the project also developed a much wider interest in
the surrounding landscape. This was extensively surveyed by geophysical surveys which
provided the basis for a series of excavations that included small-scale testing of the
anomalies and more extensive excavation in advance of the development of car parks and
visitor facilities.
Both excavations are in landscapes rich in archaeological remains that have been the focus of
archaeological attention for many archaeologists. Immediately to the south east of Taplow is
the Eton Rowing Lake development which was extensively excavated by Oxford
Archaeology and this area of Thames gravels has seen many other rescue excavations. Castle
Hill lies opposite Dorchester upon Thames, the location of an iconic early prehistoric
monument complex, a unique Late Iron Age oppida and a Roman town. The sites contribute a
considerable amount of information which can be placed in a local and regional context and
make a major contribution to our understanding of the development of a very significant
monument; the hillfort.
The excavations at Taplow revealed the eastern boundary of an enclosure built on the edge of
a plateau overlooking the River Thames. The boundary comprised a large number of post
rows and three ditches, which can be phased as an initial timber boundary, possibly a
complex structure, a palisade, a v-shaped ditch, a u-shaped ditch with associated timber
framed rampart, (which was later burnt down) and an outer ditch. The early timber boundary
and the initial v-shaped ditch appear to belong to a phase of Late Bronze Age activity starting
in the eleventh century and continuing through to the eighth or early seventh centuries BC.
There is then a hiatus, at least in boundary construction, until the fifth century when the ushaped ditch and associated timber framed rampart were created. There is no clear date for
the outer ditch but it is argued that it was constructed after the rampart was destroyed by fire.
Later landscaping associated with the Medieval and later occupation of the bluff meant clear
indentification of the line of the boundaries and the extent of both the Bronze Age and Iron
Age hillforts was difficult, and although suggestions are made, these have to be treated with
caution. The excavations only allowed for the examination of a very small area of the interior
of the enclosure. This contained several lines of posts and some evidence for the construction
of timber roundhouses and four post structures. The rows are difficult to understand but they
may represent an internal partitioning of the interior or earlier settlement enclosures; the
roundhouses are not terribly convincing but do indicate the presence of some form of
structures. There was a large quantity of Late Bronze Age ceramics recovered from this area,
which supports the idea that the first enclosure was densely occupied, but there is very little
evidence for Iron Age activity.
The chronology for this sequence is excellent as it is based on a large number of radiocarbon
dates, a small collection of OSL dates and stratigraphic relationships which allowed these to
be refined using Bayesian statistics. The construction of the final rampart and u-shaped ditch
is particularly closely dated due to the presence of considerable quantities of charcoal
associated with the burnt down rampart. Unfortunately the quantities of pottery securely
stratified and associated with these radiocarbon dates was not extensive and the Iron Age
assemblage in particular was minimal.
The interpretation of the sequence is also problematic as much of the surface stratigraphy had
been removed by later development and the excavators have had to rely on a small area of
surviving stratigraphy along the southern edge of the excavated area. Much doesn’t really
make sense. Why are the original timber rows that are argued to make up a box rampart
frame so irregular? How does the palisade relate to the first rampart? Why does the Late
Bronze Age hillfort have a v-shaped ditch apparently accompanied by a dump rampart? What
do the lines of postholes in the interior represent? How did the gravel surrounding the timber
frame of the Iron Age rampart become so burnt? Why is there so little evidence for
occupation in the Iron Age enclosure? All these questions are discussed in the text and the
authors make a good stab at answering many of them but they are still problems and I suspect
these can only be resolved by further excavation at the site.
The sequence at Castle Hill, Wittenham Clumps, has strong similarities with that at Taplow
hillfort but there are also significant differences. An initial geophysical survey of the hillfort
identified an earlier enclosure which excavation showed to be defined by a flat-bottomed, or
u-shaped, ditch 2m deep and over 4m wide at the surface. This was dated by a reasonable
assemblage of ceramics and four radiocarbon dates. The radiocarbon dates suggest primary
deposition in the ditch took place between 1010 and 870 cal BC. It is argued that the ceramic
assemblage is Decorated PDR wares which should be dated slightly later but I think this is
incorrect; the assemblage probably dates towards the end of the Late Bronze Age sequence
when decoration is becoming more common but it precedes the Decorated PDR ceramics that
characterise the LBA/EIA transition. The ditch contained a reasonable quantity of animal
bone, which was dominated by cattle but included a substantial assemblage of pig bone,
which comprised 20% of the entire assemblage. The environmental evidence suggests the
enclosure was built in a landscape that was still wooded. There is very little evidence for the
occupation of the hillfort in the Late Bronze Age and only one pit is dated to this period.
However, it has to be emphasised that only a small proportion of the interior has been
explored and the interior has been substantially eroded by later cultivation. This may also
explain the absence of any evidence for a rampart, though to have removed the substantial
postholes that one might have expected to find would suggest a considerable amount of
erosion.
The next phase is argued to be the construction of the hillfort. This comprised a rampart with
a chalk bank 7 m wide, whose only structural feature was a rear slot that may have held a
revetment, a v-shaped ditch, which taking advantage of the natural slope, was 7.5 metres
deep, and had a substantial counterscarp bank. Our understanding of this boundary is limited.
The physical exploration of the original rampart was confined to a narrow trench (0.5 m
wide, presumably for health and safety reasons) which restricted the possibilities of finding
and understanding any associated structural features. The ditch excavations were more
substantial but neither produced any material that was capable of being scientifically dated
and consequently the date for the construction of this feature is problematic. In the
concluding discussion it is proposed to be of Early Iron Age date with continued occupation
into the Middle Iron Age. Its construction is associated with a large pit from near the summit
of the hill and a thick deposit of occupation debris in the upper fill of the original LBA
enclosure ditch. Later Middle Iron Age activity comprised a substantial number of shallow
pits several of which contained human burials.
This chronology is slightly less clear than it first appears as the authors’ terminology for the
Iron Age is slightly different to the one I would use. Early Iron Age in this case covers the
periods that could be called the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age transition, or which Cunliffe
and others call the Earliest Iron Age, as well as the Early Iron Age. The difference is clearly
set out in the ceramic report where the Early Iron Age is split into EIA 1 (800-500 cal BC)
and EIA 2 (500-300 cal BC). The assemblage from the secondary fills of the LBA enclosure
ditch is dated to the first period, and the assemblage from the pit, the second period. The
construction of the hillfort cannot therefore be placed into either period with any confidence.
It would also have been helpful to have radiocarbon dates from the pit and the later fills of the
LBA ditch.
There is no need to assume that internal occupation on the hilltop is in anyway associated
with the presence of a boundary as it is clear from related work in the low-lying ground
around the hill that the fort was located in a densely occupied landscape. Of considerable
significance is the presence of layers of thick occupation deposits (midden) dating to the Late
Bronze Age and Early Iron Age on the slopes immediately below the hillfort. Two areas of
deposition were identified, both of which have been explored by earlier excavations. The
western area was re-examined in this recent work when a long trench was dug through the
occupation soils and a new area opened up around the original trench. The recent work
revealed a Late Bronze Age soil horizon covered by an Early Iron Age midden. The latter
seems to belong largely to the EIA 1, the LBA/EIA transition period, though with a few later
deposits. Again it would have been helpful if this deposit had been intensively radiocarbon
dated.
At this point I have to admit to finding the discussion of the Wittenham volume difficult to
follow and in particular the discussion of the landscape excavations. The broad structure
splits the volume into excavations on the hill and those in the surrounding landscape, the
description is then split by period and then by feature. This seems logical but is actually
irritating when it comes to looking at the many disparate trenches scattered across the
landscape. These trenches are often filled with pits, gullies and post holes which have been
phased into various periods and so the description is fractured into many small gobbets of
information scattered throughout a very long chapter. It is really difficult to get a handle on
what is going on. I would have preferred individual reports which clearly outlined the
sequences in each trench. It would also have been useful to be able to examine what the
different trenches produced. For example, I am interested in the midden deposits at the base
of the hillfort but it is impossible to separate out the animal bones which specifically came
from the midden and compare these with other contemporary deposits. To make a simplistic
summary the excavations have demonstrated that the landscape is densely occupied from the
Late Bronze Age to the end of the Middle Iron Age when it is presumed that attention shifts
to the other side of the river and the Late Iron Age oppida at Dorchester.
The presence of a Middle Iron Age settlement contemporary with that inside the hillfort is
interesting and marks this region as quite different to the Wessex chalklands where Middle
Iron Age hillforts appear to develop complex external defences which involved major
clearance of surrounding landscapes. There are several important differences in the activity
inside and outside the hillfort. The number of human burials is much higher in the hillforts,
cereal processing occurred in the surrounding landscape but not inside the hillfort (which had
fully processed grain), the hillfort produced much higher quantities of pig bones, and
metalworking debris was only identified in the landscape. These characteristics suggest the
hillfort is associated with specialised food consumption activities (feasting) and may well
have been a ritual focus (burials) where polluting activities (metalworking) were excluded.
This could be argued to support the interpretation that hillforts in this area functioned
primarily as communal centres rather than as domestic settlements.
These excavations make a significant contribution to our understanding of hillforts. They
provide confirmation of the existence of a significant group of Late Bronze Age enclosures in
the Thames valley. Taplow and Castle Hill can be compared with Rams Hill in particular,
with their substantial boundaries which enclose areas just under a hectare in size. These
enclosures are clearly different to the smaller more circular enclosures found in the Thames
estuary for example at Mucking and Springfield Lyons, and to the much larger enclosures of
the Wessex heartlands such as Balksbury and Harting Beacon, which are also securely dated
to the Late Bronze Age. They also contrast with the larger and more massively bounded
enclosures that were later constructed on top of both Taplow and Castle Hill, and throughout
central southern England, at the beginning of the Early Iron Age. This suggests an emergent
pattern of the development of regionally distinct enclosures in the Late Bronze Age, a pattern
which contrasts with the much more homogeneous hillforts of the Early Iron Age.
However, there are problems with this simplistic picture. For example, the similarities of the
enclosures at Rams Hill, Taplow and Castle Hill should not be exaggerated; the radiocarbon
dates from Rams Hill (Needham and Ambers 1994) indicate that this site was constructed
sometime before those at Castle Hill and Taplow; the v-shaped ditch at Taplow is quite
different to the flat or u-shaped ditches recorded at Rams Hill and Castle Hill; and the
absence of evidence for a timber palisade or revetted rampart at Castle Hill makes it different
from Rams Hill and Taplow. The absence of any significant occupation within Castle Hill
also differentiates this site from the other two. Furthermore, we have the problem of how we
fit other sites into this sequence. For example the enclosure at Uffington, which lies to the
west of Rams Hill, has a fine timber laced rampart and substantial deep ditch, it is
comparable in size to the later hillfort at Castle Hill and would appear to be a classic Early
Iron Age hillfort; yet the ceramic assemblage, Decorated PDR, recovered from the recent
excavations (Miles et al. 2003) suggests a much earlier date at the beginning of the LBA/EIA
transition c 800 cal BC.
I find these inconsistencies worrying but my desire to find clear and simple patterning in the
archaeological record may be too simplistic. Why should all these sites be identical, people
are not identical and there is always scope for significant variation. Alternatively, perhaps we
are trying too hard as archaeologists to create complete stories from what are actually rather
small interventions in the landscape. We don’t actually know the date of the hillfort at Castle
Hill and the chronological evidence from Uffington may be misleading. The areas excavated
inside both the enclosures at Taplow and Castle Hill represent very small percentages of
their interiors and can therefore only provide a limited understanding of the potential
complex occupation of these settlements. I personally feel that the inconsistency of the
archaeological record is more likely to reflect small-scale interventions on complex sites,
which have been badly truncated and damaged by later activity. We need to continue to work
on these sites and increase our understanding of their important histories.
Both volumes are attractive publications with excellent colour illustrations, photos and plans,
throughout. The purchase price is very reasonable and presumably heavily subsidised by the
developers. Of the two, Taplow seems the best written and the most coherent publication.
The volume on Castle Hill and the Wittenhams has a more problematic structure with the
result that its presentation of the excavation data seems less thorough and satisfactory.
Nevertheless, together they make a major contribution to our understanding of a region that is
becoming one of the most intensively explored regions in Britain, and they will undoubtedly
have a considerable influence on future research and general interpretations of Later
Prehistory.
References
Miles, D, Palmer, S Loch, G, Gosden, C, and Cromarty, A M, 2003. The Uffington white
horse and its landscape. Oxford: Oxford Archaeological Unit
Needham, S P, and Ambers J, 1994. Redating Rams Hill, Proc Prehist Soc 60, 225-243
Niall Sharples
University of Cardiff
March 2012
“The views expressed in this review are not necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews
Editor”