A Middle Bronze Age field system, occupation and burial with Neolithic and Saxon pits, and Roman ditches at Littleworth road, Benson, Oxfordshire

The fieldwork examined an extensive spread of archaeological deposits mostly assigned a Middle Bronze Age date. In particular, a large area of enclosed landscape (field system) has been closely dated to the Middle Bronze Age by a series of four radiocarbon dates suggesting it was in use from about 1400-1200 BC. The field system was unusually rich in finds of pottery and animal bone, the latter including horse, an animal likely to have been of special status at this time. A bronze side-loped spearhead was also recovered. The field system is thought to be indicative of the presence of an elite in society. Despite the volume of artefacts, deposits representing settlement activity were few. The extensive examination of a contiguous area has been of particular significance in understanding the nature, layout and chronology of the field system, a perspective unobtainable from smallscale interventions. A few Neolithic and Early Bronze Age pits were recorded along with a few clusters of Middle Bronze Age occupation features that predated the field system. Finally, a few ditches of Roman date were recorded along with a single large Anglo-Saxon pit or waterhole, radiocarbon dated to the 6th century AD. There was almost no correspondence of the features here with those excavated previously on the adjacent site to the south, in terms either of landscape organization or of chronology. See more