PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENT AT LATTON LANDS 123 
account for some 963 sherds (8987 g). Many of the 
sherds appear to derive from single vessels, in 
particular with 348 sherds from one flint-tempered 
urn and 85 sherds from a grog-tempered urn, both 
deposited in the northern enclosure ditch (783). 
The wall thicknesses suggest a range of vessel 
types are present ranging from bucket-shaped 
cordoned urn to smaller jars while several vessels 
show evidence of decoration. The jars mainly have 
simple undifferentiated rims although one is 
everted (Fig .17.15). At least one of the thinner 
walled vessels is carinated. Although no complete 
profiles have been drawn there is probably at least 
one reconstructable urn from the eastern terminal 
of the northern enclosure ditch (783). 
Several typological parallels exist for the urn 
material with its distinctively expanded rim form. 
Bucket-shaped vessels occur in the classic Deverel- 
Rimbury assemblages of central Wessex, such as 
Thorny Down, Wiltshire (Stone 1941) and the 
Dorset area (Calkin 1964), Cranborne Chase 
(Barrett 1991) as well as in the Thames Valley 
(Barrett 1974). At least one of the urns from Bevan’s 
Quarry, Gloucestershire round barrow assemblage 
had a similarly expanded rim form to the Latton 
examples (O’Neil 1967, fig 3.5). The presence of 
pre-firing perforations is also a recurrent feature 
seen elsewhere, for example at Bray (Cleal 1995, fig. 
18. p8-9, p17), Sunbury (Barrett 1974, figs 2.19, 22, 
26) and Acton (op. cit. fig 4). 
_ The use of finger-tip decoration on non-urn 
material is well documented elsewhere, for example, 
pottery from the Cranborne Chase middle Bronze 
Age settlement enclosures (Barrett 1991). A parallel 
for the splayed wall vessel from (367) (Fig. 16.7) can 
be found amongst the middle Bronze Age material 
published from Bray near Maidenhead (Cleal 1995, 
P13). The Bray group also contained bucket-shaped 
urn and a small number of carinated sherds. 
Although a possible late Bronze Age date for the 
latter was considered, it was concluded that the 
carinated sherds, although not typical, were 
contemporary with the middle Bronze Age 
assemblage (ibid 29). 
Globular Urn is also present in the assemblage 
represented by the decorated fine flint-tempered 
sherd and possibly some of the thinner-walled 
carinated sherds. Comparable material with lightly 
tooled decoration is recorded from the Bournemouth 
area (Calkin 1964, fig 10) and Kimpton, Hampshire 
(Ellison 1981). Traditionally such material has a 
distinctive Wessex association, but the presence of 
Globular Urn is now documented from the Thames 
Valley, for example at Bray, Maidenhead (Cleal 
1995), Newbury (Timby pers comm), Yarnton 
(Barclay pers comm), Horcott (Lamdin-Whymark 
forthcoming) and Abingdon (Avery 1982, 26-32). 
The juxtaposition of three fabric types at 
Latton perhaps reflects the location of the site in 
the Thames Valley between the Cotswolds to the 
north-west and the Marlborough Downs to the 
south-east. The shelly wares suggest a Jurassic 
source in the Cotswold region and a similar fabric 
was used to form the cordoned urns recovered from 
Bevan’s Quarry round barrow, Temple Guiting 
(O’Neil 1967, fig. 3). The flint-tempered tradition is 
perhaps more typical of the south and this is the 
main component of the middle Bronze Age vessels 
recovered from the Thorny Down settlement, 
Wiltshire (Stone 1941) and the Cranborne Chase 
sites (Barrett et al. 1978). 
Components of the assemblage were thus 
apparently being imported and few, if any, of the 
vessels support a source from the immediate 
locality. Few other settlement assemblages from the 
immediate area compare with the Latton 
assemblage although the juxtaposition of large urn 
and smaller plain and decorated vessels is seen at 
other domestic sites such as South Lodge, Dorset 
(Barrett 1991) and Thorny Down. Analysis of 
pottery from middle Bronze Age sites on Cranborne 
Chase highlighted Martin Down as having a 
different ceramic pattern to some of _ its 
contemporary sites. It showed a wider range of 
sources and has other elements such as size and the 
presence of metal-working which sets it apart. Like 
Martin Down (Barrett et al 1978), Latton appears to 
lie at the meeting point of different ceramic zones. 
Iron Age 
A small collection of material appears to be more 
typical of the Iron Age in the area. Difficulty was 
encountered in discriminating between certain of 
the shelly based wares that could be of Bronze Age 
or Iron Age date. 
Description of fabrics 
SHELL 4: Shelly ware. A thinner-walled ware 
with a dark orange to orange-brown exterior and a 
brown core and interior surface. Inclusions are 
commonly leached out leaving a vesicular fabric. 
The paste contains a moderate frequency of fossil 
shell up to 5-6mm in size with a sparse scatter of 
coarser shell, occasional discrete ooliths and other 
fossiliferous matter including bryozoa. In total 
153 sherds of this ware was noted, the only 
