Internationally recognised art and literary critic, writer and cultural producer. Published in ELLE, Glamour, Esquire and Cosmopolitan; member of the Union of Writers.
What do you expect to find when you dig up the ground for a new housing development? Perhaps some old pipes, bricks, or coins. But what if you stumble upon a prehistoric monument and a Roman pottery factory?
That’s exactly what happened at the Middlebeck site, a 694-acre urban extension to the south of Newark, Nottinghamshire, where more than 3,000 homes and a £100 million link road are planned. Before the construction began, a team of archaeologists from Oxford Archaeology was called in to survey the area and document any traces of the past.
What they found was astonishing: a rich and diverse archaeological landscape that spans 12,000 years of human history, from the end of the ice ages to the 17th century Civil War. Among the most remarkable discoveries were a henge monument and a Roman pottery center, both of which are rare and significant in their own right.
A henge is a type of circular earthwork that consists of a ditch and a bank, often with one or more entrances. They are usually associated with ritual or ceremonial activities in the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. The henge at Middlebeck is dated to about 3,300 BC and is located near a spring, which may have given it a special meaning for the prehistoric people who built it. The archaeologists also found evidence of internal posts and pits, possibly forming one or more concentric arcs of upright timbers.
Another intriguing find was a polished stone axe head from Langdale, Cumbria, which is about 150 miles away from the site. The axe head is probably of a similar date to the henge, but it was found buried with Iron Age pottery, from about 3,000 years later. It also shows signs of being used as a whetstone, suggesting that it was kept and reused for generations, perhaps as a cherished heirloom or a symbol of status.
The site also contained 35 cremation burials from the Bronze Age, some of which were accompanied by necklace beads that indicate influences from continental Europe. The archaeologists also detected traces of a sizeable Iron Age farming community, with fields, enclosures, and roundhouses.
But the biggest surprise was the discovery of 73 Roman kilns and a vast quantity of related pottery, which date from the 1st to the 4th century AD. The kilns are remarkably well-preserved and show a variety of shapes and sizes. The pottery includes jars, bowls, dishes, flagons, and mortaria, which are vessels with gritted surfaces for grinding food. The pottery is mostly of local origin, but some pieces are imported from other regions, such as Gaul and Germany.
The number and quality of the kilns and pottery suggest that the site was a major production center that supplied the local market and beyond. The archaeologists believe that this is a previously unknown pottery center that is of regional, if not national, importance. They also speculate that the site may have been linked to the nearby Roman town of Segelocum, which was a strategic crossing point of the River Trent.
The Middlebeck site is a rare example of a continuous and diverse human occupation that spans millennia. It reveals the changing patterns of life, culture, and economy in this part of England, from the prehistoric to the Roman times. It also demonstrates the value and potential of archaeological surveys, which can uncover hidden treasures and stories that enrich our understanding of the past.
