Segsbury Camp : Excavations in 1996 and 1997 at an Iron Age Hillfort on the Oxfordshire Ridgeway

by Lock, G. R.; Daly, Patrick T.; Bailey, Richard N.; Raven, Sheila

• ISBN13: 9780947816681
• ISBN10: 0947816682
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-02-28
• Publisher: David Brown Book Co

Summary

This volume describes the two seasons of excavation at Segsbury Camp which form a part of Oxford University's Hillforts of the Ridgeway Project. It contains background material and a series of interpretations of the site at different scales finishing with a discussion of the Lambourn Downs landscape in later prehistoric and Romano-British times. The evidence suggests that the large hillfort of Segsbury was used during the period 6th to 2nd century BC but was not densely and permanently occupied. It also seems that Segsbury was constructed in a new and previously unused area of the Downs. Alternative interpretations are explored within a framework of trying to understand what is meant by 'community' and how Segsbury articulated with other hillforts in the area. The detail provided by the excavation of several hillforts on the Lambourn Downs suggests that they were different forms of monument and argues against trying to understand hillforts as a single category.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The hillforts of the Ridgeway Project	p. 11
Segsbury Camp	p. 13
The excavations	p. 15
The structure of this report	p. 16
Background
The historical background and the dating of the road	p. 17
The camp	p. 17
The road	p. 22
The ditches	p. 24
The magnetometer surveys 1993-6	p. 25
Introduction	p. 25
The results	p. 26
The Segsbury Art Project	p. 32
The project	p. 32
Landscape photographs	p. 36
Segsbury Project : art from excavation	p. 37
Creating history at Segsbury
The excavations	p. 43
Trenches in the interior	p. 44
Trenches related to the ramparts	p. 88
Worked bone and metal objects report and summary specialist reports	p. 113
Worked bone and metal objects	p. 113
The later prehistoric pottery	p. 115
The Iron Age animal bone	p. 116
The human skeletal assemblage	p. 119
The carbonised plant remains	p. 120
The molluscan analysis	p. 120
The flint	p. 121
The daub and fired clay	p. 122
The worked stone	p. 122
The slag-like material	p. 123
Understanding deposition	p. 124
Introduction	p. 124
The methodology	p. 125
Deposition within Segsbury	p. 127
Discussion	p. 132
Community and landscape - the creation of Segsbury, a new place
Introduction	p. 133
The relational approach	p. 133
Community building	p. 133
Constraint and creativity	p. 134
Segsbury in its landscape	p. 135
Evidence of pre-hillfort activity	p. 135
Understanding Segsbury's location	p. 140
Processes of creation - defining the space	p. 141
Early construction	p. 141
Later construction	p. 142
The use of the interior	p. 144
The roundhouses	p. 144
Pits and artefacts	p. 145
Sheep farming	p. 145
Change over time	p. 149
Conclusions	p. 149
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