Wellington Quarry, Herefordshire (1986-96): Investigations of a Landscape in the Lower Lugg Valley (WHEAS Monograph)

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.

Table of Contents

Part 1. Introduction
1. Background
2. Location
3. Historical and archaeological context
4. Project history
5. Aims
6. Fieldwork methodology
7. Fieldwork and management approaches: future directions
8. Post-excavation analysis
9. The archive

Part 2. Dating , landscape and environment
10. The scientific dating programme (John Meadows, Alex Bayliss, Chris Bronk Ramsey, Gordon Cook and Robin Jackson)
11. Geology and drift
12. Alluvium and palaeochannels
13. Geoarchaeology (Richard Payne and David Jordan)
14. Prehistoric limewoods of Herefordshire: pollen and seeds from Wellington Quarry (James Greig)

Part 3. Earlier prehistoric activity
15. Deposits
16. The Neolithic pottery (Alex Gibson)
17. Organic residue analysis (Robert Berstan and Richard P. Evershed)
18. The flaked stone (Peter S. Bellamy)
19. Microwear analysis (Randolph E. Donahue and Adrian A. Evans)
20. Other finds
21. Environment (Elizabeth Pearson)
22. Interpretation and discussion

Part 4. Later prehistoric and Romano-British activity
23. Bronze Age activity
24. Iron Age deposits
25. Roman deposits
26. The Roman pottery (Laura Griffin)
27. Ceramic building material (Laura Griffin)
28. Other finds (Laura Griffin)
29. The cremated bone (Darlene Weston)
30. Environmental remains (Elizabeth Pearson)
31. Overview of Romano-British settlement and activity

Part 5. Medieval and post-medieval activity
32. Medieval activity
33. Post-medieval and modern activity

Part 6. Synthesis
34. Transition and change
35. Conclusions

Appendices
1. Geoarchaeological observations by site area (Richard Payne)
2. Petrological analysis (Robert A. Ixer)
3. Skeletal inventory (Darlene Weston)