KILSBY VILLAGE

As part of the preparations for DIRFT Stage II, a major archaeological dig took place at Barby Nortoft in the spring of 2006, with a team of archaeologists working at Nortoft for four months.

A preliminary geophysical survey plus trial trenching to assess the site’s potential had revealed possible Stone Age traces east of Nortoft Lane, and Middle Iron Age traces west of Nortoft Lane. No evidence of later occupation was found – so a foot of topsoil was removed by excavator across the site, to expose a layer corresponding to ground level about 2000 years ago.

The preliminary survey resulted in the site being rated as of local/county importance rather than national/international relevance. This restricted the detailed work to excavation of such items as:

• Any really early (Neolithic) features
• A selection of Iron Age roundhouses (seven were fully excavated, ten others partially), and one rectangular enclosure
• Any human or animal burials

With topsoil removed, traces of numerous pits and ditches were visible; any manmade features showed up very clearly, as dark marks against the light sandy subsoil. Such features were outlined with paint-markers (see photograph) and plotted to create an accurate site map – and then some of the promising features were excavated.

Various small pottery fragments were found, dating from the Stone Age right through to just before the Norman Conquest. At north and west of the site, about a score of Late Bronze Age cremations were found – all adult burials, containing very small quantities of bone, which suggests that these may have been symbolic/ritual burials. However, as predicted in the initial geophysics survey, the vast majority of the finds were from the Middle to Late Iron Age (roughly 300BC-100BC).

Reconstruction of a typical roundhouse

The whole site is covered by Iron Age roundhouse circles – about 50 to 60 in total, with three particularly large roundhouse circles spaced across the site (you can get a good idea of what they would have looked like from the photographs, which are taken from a historical reconstruction project at Butser in Hampshire).

Some rectangular enclosures were also found – the largest about 100m x 50m – each of them surrounding several roundhouse circles. They may perhaps have enclosed:

• houses of high-status people
• houses of an extended family group or clan
• a small settlement at a slightly different time-period

Other finds included a few stone querns (for grinding flour), storage pits (for storing grain in anaerobic conditions), and a small iron anvil together with iron scrap and fuel ash, which show that iron-making and iron-working was carried out on the site. Burnt stones were found in some ditches, probably used in cooking and discarded when they cracked.

The amount of animal bone found (mostly gnawed by dogs and rodents), plus a few human bones spread across the site (none in deliberate graves), suggest that the site was rather messy, with litter and waste lying around.

Comparisons with other adjacent sites

Some broad generalisations can be made, to compare this site with the other adjacent Iron Age sites excavated during the first stage of construction at DIRFT:

• Barby Nortoft

50-60 roundhouses of both simple and complex types, also two types of enclosures (physically separate). Middle to Late Iron Age. Some roundhouse circles intersect, many more do not. This may have been a large and relatively short-term community, rather than a small group that was re-established several times.

• Crick Covert (DIRFT Prologis site, A5 north side)

80-90 roundhouses of both simple and complex types, also two types of enclosures. Probably used over a more extended time-period than the Nortoft site.

• Long Dole (DIRFT Stobart site, A5 south side)

30-35 roundhouses, and rectangular and square enclosures similar in size to those at Nortoft; however, at Long Dole the square enclosure was within the rectangular enclosure.

• The Lodge (DIRFT site, facing Halfway House)

20-25 roundhouses densely clustered with much intersection, but no square or rectangular enclosures.

• Crick Hotel (adjacent to M1)

10-12 simple roundhouses, all of simple form. This site was probably fairly shortlived compared to Nortoft.

(There were also a couple of small dwellings dating from the early Roman period (50-150AD) – one on a corner of the Barby Nortoft site, the other at The Lodge site. These were both relatively small, and may or may not have been related to each other.)

Conclusions

All the Iron Age sites show evidence of small-scale iron-production, and have many querns –some locally-made, some from outside the region – and traces of textiles. These sites were all agriculture-based economies.

Considering all these excavated sites together, there seems to be evidence for a very large Iron Age site – a population perhaps up to 500 if all sites were occupied simultaneously.

This was a low-lying area with no significant vantage-point, suggesting that the area was peaceable over the period when it was occupied.

It may perhaps also be significant that this area in pre-Roman times lay between three tribal territories – Coritani (north), Dobunni (south-west) and Catuvellauni (east).

There are probably further undiscovered Iron Age remains below adjacent fields which do not currently form part of the DIRFT development, and therefore were not examined.

It would be wonderful to see further work to evaluate this whole site – for example by discussion between the groups who worked on the individual digs and the associated analysis of finds.