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George
Lambrick and Tim Allen.
Gravelly
Guy: Excavations at Stanton Harcourt.
Oxford
Archaeology, 2005.
520p,
179 b/w illus, 31 ls.
Publisher's
recommended price
Hardback
ISBN 0947816666, £34.95
Excavations conducted
between 1981 and 1986 in advance of gravel extraction in Gravelly Guy
field, Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, revealed archaeological evidence
spanning from the Neolithic through to the Saxon period. Neolithic and
early Bronze Age activity is represented by pit scatters and a series
of ring ditches with associated burials. The Iron Age and early Roman
periods witnessed the continuous development of a linear settlement,
consisting of a dense area of pits, gullies, circular structures,
four-posters and boundary ditches in the mid to late Iron Age phase and
a series of rectilinear enclosures and unusual 'ramped hollows' and
wells in the late Iron Age/early Roman period. Excavation of a section
at the junction of the floodplain and the gravel terrace has also
provided information regarding the changing land use and contemporary
environment in the vicinity of the site. Gravelly Guy remains one of
the most thoroughly excavated sites of this period in the Thames
Valley. As well as the vast amount of structural evidence, the
considerable quantities of artefacts and environmental information
recovered, together with a series of ten radiocarbon dates, have
resulted in a detailed study of the site, its position in the landscape
and relationship to the contemporary archaeology of the surrounding
area.
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