Anglian, Saxon, and Viking
Bristol
(see R Price in the Medieval section)
Cambridgeshire
Malim, T, Penn, K, Robinson, B, Wait, G, and Welsh, K, 1996 New evidence on the Cambridgeshire Dykes and Worstead Street Roman Road, Proc Cambridge Antiq Soc, 85, 27-122
The Cambridgeshire Dykes form some of the largest Anglo-Saxon earthworks still surviving in England. These monuments and the Roman Road of Worsted Street run from the wooded hills in the south-east to lowland wet areas in the north-west, cutting across the Icknield Way corridor and effectively controlling access to East Anglia. Recent investigations have shown that they separate into two groups in terms of relative size, but were constructed to a single design and were found to have been built into grazed grassland. The most complex stratigraphic sequence was discovered at Fleam Dyke where at least three main phases of bank construction took place, and a complex pattern of ditch cutting was also recorded. A sequence of seven radiocarbon dates has produced a fifth-century date for the first phase of the feature, and demonstrated that it contained in use into the seventh century.
(see also N Oakey in the Medieval section)
Wiltshire
Smith, R, 1997 Excavations at Emwell Street, Warminster: the early economy and environment of a Wiltshire market town, Trust for Wessex Archaeology, Salisbury
Excavations on the fringes of Saxon Warminster produced an archaeological sequence charting the development of this backland area from at least the eleventh century. This area, susceptible to winter flooding and thereby preserving pollen and waterlogged plant remains, was used for smelting and iron forging, butchery, and possibly leatherworking and potting until the thirteenth century, when the town's commerce shifted to a newly laid-out marketplace. Thereafter, residential development is apparent. An important assemblage of Crockerton pottery was recovered and the development of Saxon and medieval Warminster is discussed.