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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



c.35kg was recovered, and with the exception of 

 five burnt fragments recovered from an Iron Age 

 pit, the remaining pieces were retrieved from 

 Roman deposits, particularly from the midden 

 layers in Area 2(127 fragments) . 



QUERNS 



22 fragments are derived from quern stones 

 including three fragments of saddle querns and 

 three fragments derived from rotary querns, the 

 remaining fragments are too small or lack diagnostic 

 features to attribute them with certainty to a specific 

 form of quern. The quern stone fragments all have 

 at least one worn and smoothed surface or roughly 

 hewn outer edge, and are in a hard, micaceous 

 ferruginous sandstone ranging in thickness from 

 1 6mm to 32mm. Two of the saddle quern fragments 

 have both faces smoothed. The fragments of rotary 

 quern include one lower stone (70mm thick) and 

 one upper fragment (80 mm thick). 



Thirteen quern fragments including two saddle 

 fragments and one rotary quern fragment were 

 recovered from the midden deposits. The remaining 

 fragments were recovered from pit F4225, the stone 

 structure F4007 and ditches F4261 and F4288. 



STONE ROOF TILE 



1 24 stone fragments derived from stone roofing tiles 

 were recovered. With the exception of two 

 greensand tile fragments the remainder of fragments 

 are in a hard, micaceous ferruginous sandstone (Old 

 Red Sandstone), the nearest source being the 

 Mendip Hills approximately 30km south-west of 

 Devizes. 



There are no complete examples present, 

 although a single large fragment has a surviving nail 

 fixing hole with a diameter of 8mm. This piece has 

 two roughly hewn sides surviving, suggesting a 

 typical lozenge shape. The tile fragments range in 

 thickness from 8mm to 30mm, with an average of 

 16mm. 



The bulk of the tile fragments was recovered 

 from midden deposits (102 fragments). The 

 remaining fragments were dispersed in small 

 quantities mainly within pits and ditches of Area 2, 

 and slight concentrations were found in ditch F426 1 

 and pit F4225 (5 and 7 fragments respectively). 



OTHER STONE 



The other stone fragments comprise one rubber 

 and three possible utilised objects, 42 burnt 



fragments and one unworked fragment of lias 

 limestone. The rubber from ditch segments 3040/ 

 3042 in Area 1 is circular in shape and in a fine 

 grained sandstone. The possible utilised objects 

 comprise a smoothed pebble from ditch F2 1 09, one 

 domed greensand fragment from layer 2102 in 

 Trench 21, and one unidentified sandstone object 

 with two parallel grooves, possibly a whetstone, 

 from ditch segment 4072 in F4261 .The burnt stone 

 consists of unworked fragments in greensand (19), 

 sandstone (18) and limestone (5) and was mainly 

 recovered in very small quantities from Area 1 pits 

 and linears, slight concentrations were also 

 recovered from pit F4234 and within the midden 

 of Area 2. 



BURNT FLINT 



A small quantity of burnt flint was recovered from 

 the site (19 fragments weighing 260 grammes) and 

 although intrinsically undatable burnt flint is often 

 associated with prehistoric artefacts and taken as 

 an indicator of prehistoric activity. The fragments 

 were dispersed in very small quantities within a 

 number of mainly Iron Age features in Area 1 (only 

 three fragments were recovered from the late 

 Romano-British midden). 



THE HUMAN SKELETAL 

 ASSEMBLAGE 



by Kate Brayne 



INTRODUCTION 



Three skeletons of Romano-British date were 

 recovered. In addition, three stray human bone 

 fragments were recovered, comprising an adult 

 humerus fragment from pit F4225, and a tibia and 

 neonatal tibia from the midden. No skeleton was 

 complete from the graves and all three individuals 

 were poorly preserved. Those bones which did 

 survive were in fragmentary condition, invariably 

 exhibiting almost total exfoliation of the periosteum 

 In each individual the long bones were the best 

 preserved, with the axial skeleton (ribs, vertebrae 

 and pelvis) almost entirely absent. Additionally, only 

 the shafts of the long bones survived, again because 

 the epiphyses consist largely of trabecular bone. In 

 Inhumations 1 and 2 the skull vaults survived, 

 although in fragmentary condition, but the delicate 

 facial bones were not preserved. In Inhumation 3 



