Two Late Bronze Age Settlements on the Kennet Gravels: Excavations at Aldermaston Wharf and Knight's Farm, Burghfield, Berkshire

Abstract

One of the major problems of British prehistory has been the contrast between the mass of Late Bronze Age metalwork and the rarity of contemporary settlements. The Berkshire river gravels are one area in which a high proportion of bronze objects is recorded in apparent isolation. With the increasing recognition of Late Bronze Age pottery, however, it has been possible to identify domestic finds of this period among the artefacts from gravel pits around Reading. Part of the gap in the settlement record has also been closed by the excavation of two sites on the Berkshire Downs, the earthwork enclosure at Rams Hill, and an open site at Beedon Manor Farm (Bradley and Ellison 1975; Richards in press). But it was not until 1974 that a Bronze Age settlement on the gravels could be examined in situ , and since the formation of the Berkshire Archaeological Unit a series of five sites have been sampled or more extensively investigated. This paper is concerned with the two most extensive sites, those at Aldermaston Wharf and Knight's Farm, Burghfield, but will make cross reference to the other work where necessary, in particular to a more recently recorded site at Pingewood. It is now clear why this evidence was so difficult to find. The pottery is extremely friable and would not survive on the surface; and the gravel sites contain very few worked flints. The main features are small pits under 50 cm deep, and for this reason the sites cannot be detected from the air; and, even if they could be recognized, there would be nothing to distinguish them from Iron Age open sites, like those in the Upper Thames Basin.