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Summary

A Late Bronze Age ringwork circa 30m diameter, previously recorded as a geophysical anomaly, was recorded during a community excavation project on land to the west of Dark Lane. Within the arc of the ringwork were the post pits and post holes of two successive circular structures.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• RINGWORK (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC (Between) to 701 BC (Between)) + Sci.Date

Full description

Rainbird, P. + Vinnels, L., 2020, Thorverton Community Archaeology Project: Prehistoric Settlement in the Exe valley (Report - Excavation). SDV364561.

Following a trench evaluation in 2017 on land off Dark Lane which found evidence for prehistoric occupation of the site a community excavation project led by AC Archaeology was carried out in 2019. The excavation targeted two areas. Area 1 covered the area of the earlier evaluation and Area 2 the site of a possible ring ditch identified as an anomaly in a geophysical survey.
The ring ditch in Area 2 was found on excavation to be the enclosure ditch of a ringwork (F2026) estimated to be 30m diameter with a palisade gully (F2027) probably for a revetted bank on the inside. The entrance was not located and is presumed, unusually, to have been on the western side. Within the circle of the enclosure was an arc of four large post pits (F2029, F2033, F2034 and F2060), part of a post pit ring also recorded as a geophysical anomaly and with a diameter of about 10m. The pits were between 0.54m and 0.7m in diameter and up to 0.55m deep. Nine postholes and nine pits were also recorded. Five of the eight postholes were in an arc similar to but offset from the post pit ring. It is likely, therefore, that they represent different phases of construction within the enclosure.
Ditch F2026 and post pit F2034 each produced a sherd of Late Bronze Age plain ware. A third sherd was found in the top soil. A number of sherds of Middle Neolithic pottery were also found but these are considered to have been redeposited. Twenty seven lithic pieces were found of which none were chronologically distinctive.
Palaeoenvironmental samples contained small amounts of charred cereal remains of emmer and spelt. Hazelnut shell was also sparse. Charcoal came from a variety of species including hawthorn, oak, birch, hazel and blackthorn/cherry and broom/gorse. The diverse taxa and predominence of roundwood fragments is consistent with the gathering of wood for fuel.
Three calibrated radiocarbon dates were obtained. A fragment of wheat from the primary fill of ditch F2026 returned a date of 1083-906BC, charcoal from post pit F2060 produced a date of 1003-844BC and wheat chaff from pit F2047 a date of 1111-926BC.
Of particular import is the presence of spelt chaff in the samples. Evidence from other sites suggests that spelt was introduced to south-east England in the Early Bronze Age. The date of 1111-906 cal BC fits well with the spread of the crop north and westwards.

Rainbird, P. + Vinnels, L., 2021, A Middle Neolithic Settlement, Beaker Pit and Late Bronze Age Ringwork at Dark Lane, Thorverton, Mid Devon, 31, 49-51; Fis 6-7, 8a-b, 14 (Article in Serial). SDV364873.

The enclosure in Area 2 falls within the category of Late Bronze Age ringwork, sometimes termed ring-forts, of which most date to 1000-800 BC. These are circular ditched enclosures with a range in size from over 120m down to less than 40m in diameter, usually with one or two entrances and containing one or more roundhouses.
Based on the exposed section of ditch, 5.5m long, and the geophysical data, the enclosure is estimated to have an internal diameter of approximately 30m. This is small for a ringwork, but examples at South Hornchurch in Essex and Hill Barton in Exeter had similar dimensions of 32m and 37m.
A section of the ditch and overburden material was recorded to try to identify any surviving bank material, but none was evident and it has probably been lost to plough truncation. Within the enclosure, 0.5m inside the ditch, was a palisade slot which appears to have been too slight to hold a free-standing palisade. Instead, it is possible that this formed a revetment in front of a bank, or was constructed through a bank, which would better account for the ephemeral nature of the feature, with only the very base of the palisade slot exposed. No evidence for the entrance was found in the excavation or geophysical survey. It must be concluded that the entrance was in the west, in the area concealed by the current hedgebank. This is unusual as ringwork entrances typically face east.
The arc of four post-pits within the enclosure ditch would have held sizeable posts, with a post-pipe in F2034 indicating that the post was 0.36m in diameter. From a combination of extrapolation and the results of the geophysics it is estimated that the post-pit ring had a diameter of some 10m. Five of the eight postholes, smaller in diameter than the post-pits, follow a similar arc to the post-pits, and would be part of a post ring with a similar diameter to the post-pits ring. However, the two rings are offset by approximately 1m to the south-west, and it would appear that the two post rings represent different phases of construction within the enclosure. The lack of stratigraphic relationship between the post rings means that it is not known which is the earliest structure, although the presence of a post-pipe in post-pit F2034 suggests that the post rotted in situ, perhaps indicating that the structure represented by the post-pit ring replaced the earlier roundhouse.
Ringwork sites typically contain a single post-built central roundhouse. Pits F2025 and F2054 may represent the outer wall of such a structure.
No floor surfaces or hearths survived, but the charred plant remains and charcoal show that domestic activities were taking place within the enclosure. The Middle Neolithic pottery present in many of the Area 2 features suggests that the ringwork was built in the Late Bronze Age on a site that had previously been occupied in the Middle Neolithic. The location does not appear to have been marked by a Middle Neolithic earthwork, and its choice for the ringwork was probably serendipitous. However, its construction a short distance from the eroding remains of a cursus-like monument as potentially represented by the ditch in Area 1 (MDV132788) may have been deliberate.

Sources / Further Reading

SDV364561	Report - Excavation: Rainbird, P. + Vinnels, L.. 2020. Thorverton Community Archaeology Project: Prehistoric Settlement in the Exe valley. AC Archaeology. ACD1858/1/0. Digital. [Mapped feature: #136983 Polygon based on Fig. 15, projected plan from excavated features and geophysical survey, ]
	Linked documents:1
SDV364873	Article in Serial: Rainbird, P. + Vinnels, L.. 2021. A Middle Neolithic Settlement, Beaker Pit and Late Bronze Age Ringwork at Dark Lane, Thorverton, Mid Devon. Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society. 79. Paperback Volume. 31, 49-51; Fis 6-7, 8a-b, 14.

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds

• FDV7888 - LITHIC IMPLEMENT (Early Neolithic to Late Bronze Age - 4000 BC to 701 BC)
• FDV7884 - CEREAL GRAIN (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 701 BC) + Sci.Date
• FDV7886 - HAZEL NUT (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 701 BC)
• FDV7856 - Charcoal (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC) + Sci.Date
• FDV7855 - SHERD (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)

Associated Events

• EDV8786 - Excavation on land off Dark Lane, Thorverton (Ref: ACD1858/1/0)

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