All Cannings Cross and the Vale of Pewsey: Landscape and Consumption at the beginning of the Iron Age

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Last revised: 6 October 2008

Fieldwork Outline 2004

Background
Implications
Fieldwork in 2004
Contact details and dates
Map of Proposed Excavations
Diary 2004

John C Barrett - Department of ARchaeology, University of Sheffield

David McOmish - English Heritage

All Cannings Project 2004

In 2003 limited excavation took place at All Cannings Cross in the area of an archaeological site first excavated at the beginning of the twentieth century by Maude Cunnington. The aim of the 2003 excavation was to relocate the deposits that had been investigated eighty years before. We wanted to know if these deposits had survived the intervening years of ploughing and to gain a fuller understanding of what they represented.

The motivation for returning to All Cannings Cross arose because recent excavations around the Vale of Pewsey have revealed the existence of large scale deposits of animal bones, pottery, metal fragments and other organic and cultural waste. These deposits date to around the eighth century BC, the time that iron was being adopted as the new technology for tools and weapons and also around the time that the first hillforts were being constructed. It seemed possible that All Cannings Cross had produced similar deposits of organic and cultural material, and this was what we wanted to examine.

In the event we did discover spreads of material including groups of animal bone, some early iron work and late Bronze Age metalwork and broken fragments of pottery. The deposits we investigated had been damaged by ploughing, and had also been cut into by Cunnington’s earlier excavations. More remarkable was the discovery that earlier deposits underlay this material, possibly extending back in date to the Middle Bronze Age, and that other Bronze Age and Iron Age deposits lay deeply buried, and thus protected, beneath later hill-wash in the area of the site.

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Implications

A number of issues can now be identified that require further investigation.

We remain unsure as to what all these sites represent. They seem to be large piles of rubbish (middens), in some cases representing the butchered remains of many thousands of animals. Food consumption was obviously occurring, and it seems to have involved the discarding of considerable numbers of broken pottery vessels. Along-side this there are indications of metalworking on some sites. It is tempting to see some of these sites as resulting from large gatherings of people, drawn extensively from neighbouring regions, where these gatherings involved feasting and may also been connected with the exploitation of local iron sources. But are all these sites the same? Do they represent distinct and clearly defined mounds of material or are the deposits more amorphous and more extensive? And over what period of time were these sites in use? The work we have now done at All Cannings Cross hints at two things. One is that there are smaller less substantial spreads of material developing around this time, perhaps domestic waste associated with settlements sites, and that larger midden deposits occur among these settlements and represent special gathering places. Second the spreads of material and the larger deposits may be far more extensive than we had realised. If this is the case, then the implications for population size and, most importantly, the scale of the agricultural economy that was able to sustain this activity, are considerable.

All Cannings project

At a larger scale, this activity may well be connected with the beginning of iron working. This might mean that the local sources of iron were having a very considerable impact on the local economies and upon the place of these economies in the political organisation of southern Britain in the eighth century BC. Early iron working represents a very significant technological change from bronze working. We suspect that it was the established bronze smiths who are undertaking this change. That said, it seems that this was also a more general period of technological innovation, in particular it would appear that pottery manufacturing processes are changing at this time. We want to begin to investigate the ways these changes in technology are interconnected, and the ways they linked to possible changes in agricultural practices and settlement organisation.

All these issues require that we establish more secure methods to analyse and characterise the archaeological deposits we now know exist. Did these deposits result from a number of different processes, from everyday settlement rubbish to major feasting events? If there was a large permanent population in the Vale of Pewsey where exactly are the buildings that housed that population? What was the relationship between those settlement sites and the hillforts? How was the change in technologies being achieved?

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Fieldwork in 2004

As a preliminary step towards what we hope will be larger scale excavations from 2005 onwards, we must gain a clearer understanding of the nature and scale of the deposits that we are investigating. Building on last year’s work we will focus on the area around All Cannings Cross. We know that a major deposit lies immediately to the east of the original site and we believe there may be a number of smaller spreads of debris in the surrounding area. By digging test pits and by the use of augers we will map the extent and depth of these deposits and the nature of overlying soils. Under the guidance of Dr Mike Allen of Wessex Archaeology we hope to build a ‘deposit model’ for the area that will give us a three dimensional view of the way the archaeological material survives in the modern landscape.

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Alongside this mapping we will also assess the nature of the surviving material. We must begin to establish a better control over the chronology of the deposits, fixing more precisely when they began to form as well as understanding how late they continued into the Iron Age. The organic material in these middens will provide evidence for agricultural management and productivity. We know that in general the animal bone survives well and that it will give us a clear picture of meat consumption and the possible exploitation of ‘secondary products’ such as wool and milk, leather and bone working. Do charred plant remains also survive? These would provide two kinds of evidence. Crop debris indicates how the crops were being processed for storage and for consumption, whilst the accompanying weeds will allow us to understand how the land itself was being managed. Under the direction of Professor Glynis Jones of The University of Sheffield we will assess the survival of this material in the deposits that we excavate.

All Cannings Project

Finally we will assess, through test pit excavation and auguring, a new site at Steeple Ashton that has been discovered through field walking. The surface material indicates that buried deposits survive dating to a restricted chronological horizon around the eighth century BC. Is this a large midden deposit or a spread of settlement debris and is the site associated with iron working? We hope to be able to answer these questions as the result of our work this year.

All this work will be supplemented by a programme of field walking to map the extent of surface deposits in both areas.



Contact details and dates

We will be working from Monday 6th September for three weeks. This field work is only possible with the support and co-operation of the landowners involved, and the timetable for our work depends upon the timetable for harvesting. We want to share the results of our work and to discuss its implications with visitors. We will ensure that contact details and information regarding open days are posted locally.