This programme came into being in the year following the end of 20 seasons of excavation at the Iron Age hillfort of Danebury, near Stockbridge in Hampshire. the principal aims of the programme were to examine the variety among the many Iron Age settlements known in the area against the background of the gradual destruction of the sites by intensive agriculture and a need to develop a management strategy to preserve a representative sample.
The 7 sites chosen for examination each allowed a number of issues to be considered. At Woolbury and Bury Hill the ploughed interiors of hillforts were examined. Woolbury, New Buildings, and Wendy Dido focused on the relationships of linear earthworks and field systems. Four examples of different settlement types were also examined: rectangular enclosures at New Buildings, a banjo enclosure at Nettlebank Copse, a large ditched enclosure with superimposed Roman villa at Houghton Down, and a substantial multiple-ditched enclosure at Suddern Farm.
All the sites examined lay within a 20 by 25 km block of chalk downland, with Danebury at the centre, extending from the tertiary rocks of the Dean Hill anticline to the high clay-covered chalk downs north of Andover and included the Bourne valley to the west and the Test valley to the east. The advantage of working within a single environmental zone is that differences in economy from site to site can reasonably be regarded as the result of cultural or chronological factors. The results of work showed that while a very considerable variety existed among the settlement sites, certain broad development trends affected the entire territory.
The first definable phase of land allotment took place at the end of the second millennium when large areas of co-axial fields were laid out in relation to a system of linear ditches. Fields of this kind were identified at Woolbury, between Danebury and New Buildings, and Wendy Dido. At a later date, probably early in the first millennium, the linear ditch system developed further at Wendy Dido and Danebury, the new ditches putting out of use at least part of the arable area. One of these later linear ditches joined the earliest enclosures at the hillfort of Danebury to a rectangular enclosure of Late Bronze Age date at New Buildings and seems to have continued into the Test valley. The social implications of these massive programmes of landscape organisation are considerable: at the very least they imply a high degree of coercive power and an emphasis on the control of the productive capacity of the landscape.
The settlements sampled suggest that significant changes took place during the first millennium. The Late Bronze Age enclosure at New Buildings was comparatively small and need have been little more than a single family unit but at Houghton Down a ditched enclosure of some 20 hectares, dating to the 8th7th centuries was packed with substantial post-built houses and storage structures. At this time the hill of Danebury, although enclosed, showed very little trace of occupation. In the 5th and 4th centuries Danebury began to become intensively occupied and was defended with its hillfort rampart. Occupation continued at neighbouring sites such as Houghton Down, New Buildings, and Nettlebank Copse into the 3rd century, but after the defences of Danebury were reconstructed on an even more substantial scale, the neighbouring settlements all appear to have been abandoned as were the hillforts of Bury Hill I, Woolbury, and Quarley. The implications would seem to be that there was a major social dislocation some time about 300 BC in the Danebury region. For 2 centuries or so after this, Danebury was intensively occupied.
Some time about 100 BC another major change began. Bury Hill was brought back into use and re-defended with 2 ramparts separated by a ditch. Occupation areas sampled within produced an unusual quantity of high quality metal horse gear, and horse bones dominated the faunal assemblage: the contrast to the economy of Danebury (dominated numerically by sheep) is very striking. Soon after this, intensive occupation ceased at Danebury and at about this time settlements, including Houghton Down and Nettlebank Copse, were brought back into use. The settlement pattern, re-established in the later part of the 1st century BC, created the foundation for the Roman rural system in the region and Houghton Down eventually developed as a small Roman villa.
The concerted effort of fieldwork and excavation on the Danebury landscape has shown just how complex the social and economic development of the Wessex chalkland was. More important it has generated a large and varied sample of material, systematically collected, which will enable management and mitigation strategies to be developed for dealing with the intensifying threat to this fragile archaeological landscape.
