Fertile soils, rich archaeology

The Thames Valley is incredibly rich in archaeological material and the fertile soils have drawn settlers for thousands of years. Though littered with earthworks, the valley also has a great deal hidden away under ploughed agricultural land and areas of floodplain and hill wash.

At Wittenham, near Didcot, two prominent hills known locally as the Clumps overlook the valley from fantastic viewpoints. One of these, called Castle Hill, is an Iron-Age hillfort currently under excavation by Oxford Archaeology. Time Team's job was to investigate the surrounding landscape and see if it could find any trace of activity that could be associated with the Clumps.

Geophysics dreamland
Using their ingenious double magnetometers, the prospecting crew covered a remarkable seven hectares (the equivalent of about ten football pitches) over the three days. Their results highlighted a mass of underlying archaeology, including enclosure ditches, pits, possible buildings and other clusters of anomalies. These results were extensive and quite outstanding.

Roman and Iron-Age evidence
Not being ones to hang around, the diggers quickly got to work on the first trenches to make sense of the geophysics results. First port of call was what looked like a large rectilinear enclosure. Excavation within revealed the remains of a Romano-British house with tesserae (mosaic) floors and painted wall plaster. The area also contained an Iron-Age cobbled floor, together with post holes that could have related to a structure.

Further investigations found Iron-Age rubbish pits distributed all over the valley (geophysics picked up more than 300 such pits altogether), suggesting widespread settlement throughout the period. Pottery finds indicated that most activity took place in the earlier and later phases of the period, with a quieter occupation phase in the middle.

Even more to discover
By the end of the three days, the Team had discovered a wealth of archaeological remains showing how important the area was throughout the Iron Age and Roman periods. But the geophysics crew wasn't done yet.

After walking for miles across the landscape they decided to venture south of the main road that cuts across the valley. There they discovered even more suspected Iron-Age enclosures and also what appeared to be a Roman road, which would have been associated with our enclosure. Not bad for three days' work.

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