This volume presents the results of the first 10 years of
archaeological investigation at Wellington Quarry, Herefordshire.
During this time a regionally unique archaeological and
palaeoenvironmental sequence was recorded covering nearly 8000 years
of interrelated human activity and landscape change in the Lower Lugg
Valley. Starting with use by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the heavily
wooded floodplain witnessed periods of sporadic occupation and
activity throughout early prehistory. A mid 4th millennium BC pit
group provided a detailed insight into a wide range of seasonally
based activities, while later funerary deposits included a wealthy
Beaker burial. From the start of the 2nd millennium BC, an
increasingly open and cleared landscape existed beyond the floodplain,
on which activity was evidenced by occasional finds from former
watercourses. Ritual deposition of human remains and artefacts in the
later prehistoric period included a rare Iron Age double inhumation,
though by this time a more settled and farmed landscape had emerged.
By the 2nd century AD, a streamside settlement had been established.
Expansion and intensification of this settlement led to the
construction, by the 4th century, of one or more well-appointed stone
buildings indicating that at least some of the inhabitants lived a
highly Romanised lifestyle, rare on rural sites in this region. The
settlement was abandoned by the late 4th to early 5th century but,
until at least the 12th to 14th centuries, arable cultivation
continued. During the post-medieval period there was a shift towards
an enclosed landscape of pasture and meadow, a pattern maintained
until the onset of mineral extraction in the 1980s.
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Investigations of a Landscape in the Lower Lugg Valley
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781842175859
Publisert
2022
Utgiver
Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors, LLC
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter