IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 



235 



Iron Age may be more to do with density of 

 occupation and intensity of agricultural production 

 as well as the need to dispose of waste, as much as 

 it is to do with soil types. 



The mineralised deposits were dominated by 

 seeds of Brassica/Sinapis sp. Large deposits of 

 charred seeds of brassica, generally Brassica nigra 

 if identified, have been recovered from a number of 

 Iron Age sites in southern Britain. A deposit of 

 nearly 500 seeds were recovered from an Iron Age 

 pit at Balksbury Camp (de Moulins 1996, table 23) 

 and another pure assemblage was found adhering 

 to the inside of a pot base from Old Down Farm 

 (Murphy 1977, pi. 14 and 74-5; Green 1981). A 

 very large almost pure assemblage of over 2000 

 seeds was recovered from a pit at Biddenham Loop 

 in Bedfordshire (Pelling, forthcoming) . There does 

 seem to be good evidence therefore that brassicas 

 were being cultivated as a crop during the Iron Age, 

 possibly over quite a wide area. Furthermore the 

 large seed assemblages would suggest that the seeds 

 themselves were harvested, either as an oil crop or 

 to be eaten as intact seeds. (All species of Brassica 

 and Sinapis have oily seeds with a mustard flavour.) 



Conclusions 



While the environmental sampling has only 

 produced limited botanical samples, it has produced 

 very useful data. The charred remains are typical of 

 the period. The dominance of cereal waste products 

 suggests that cereal processing activities were taking 

 place at the site. The cereal species represented, spelt 

 wheat and barley, are known to form the basis of 

 cereal agriculture in the region throughout the Iron 

 Age. The mineralised remains provide additional 

 data that is only rarely recovered. The presence of 

 such remains was predicted given the proximity to 

 the Bronze Age midden at Potterne, also on the 

 Greensand soils. Certainly the growing number of 

 sites with mineralised seeds from the area suggests 

 some common contributory factor. This might be 

 to do with the soils, although it might also be to do 

 with intensity of cereal agriculture and the need to 

 collect manure. The large number of brassica seeds 

 also adds to a growing body of evidence which 

 suggests they were being cultivated at this time, 

 possibly for oil. 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 



Wendy Carruthers, Vanessa Straker and Mark 

 Robinson provided useful information and advice 

 concerning mineralised remains on the Greensand 



soils in Wiltshire. I wish to thank them and 

 particularly Wendy Carruthers for allowing me to 

 cite as yet unpublished work. Mark Robinson also 

 kindly provided comments on an earlier version of 

 this report and identified the fly puparia. 



DISCUSSION 



Area 1 



Late Neolithic 



The only feature associated with this period was a 

 pit containing 17 sherds of Peterborough Ware. This 

 pottery was decorated on both the interior and 

 exterior faces and appears to be from a single vessel. 

 No other features appear to have been associated 

 with the pit, but the presence of a plano-convex knife 

 and other pieces of worked flint of a broadly similar 

 period add to the evidence for low-level Neolithic 

 and possibly Bronze Age activity in the area. 



Iron Age 



Settlement structure 



The distribution of the features suggests a focus of 

 activity on the slight scarp overlooking the lower 

 ground to the west and south and south-east, with 

 the spread of features clearly related to the 

 topography. It is possibly significant that the 

 northern limit of feature distribution also seems to 

 echo the line of the later Roman trackway. It is 

 tempting to suggest, therefore, that there may have 

 been a trackway or droveway on this line in the Iron 

 Age, and a continuance of its use into the Roman 

 period, although no direct archaeological evidence 

 was found to support this contention. 



The core of activity is represented by a 18.5m 

 diameter penannular gully, its open west side facing 

 a spread of pits, postholes and short shallow gullies. 

 To the south west of the penannular gully lay a 

 further small concentration of pits and postholes. 



While the penannular gully (210) could 

 represent part of a ditched enclosure, the curvature 

 of the gully seems unnecessarily precise for such a 

 function; it has much more in common with the 

 eaves drip gully of a roofed building. Typical Iron 

 Age round houses are commonly identified by rings 

 of structural postholes; however, it is accepted that, 

 under particular conditions of their construction 

 or archaeological preservation, they may only be 



