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This report describes Neolithic pottery dated 2730 bc and Beaker pottery found in apparently domestic contexts; and many Bronze Age funerary features. The latter begin with two food-vessel cremations and include two barrows about one of which were ten cremation graves. Close by were another 140 cremation graves, many yielding Deverel-Rimbury pottery. Carbon-14 dates indicate the use of this cemetery between 1556 bc and 762 bc.

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This paper deals with a unique glass bead from the second millennium BC in Wessex. Overlooked for more than 150 years, it has now been recognized for its intrinsic interest and general importance and is here presented for its wide significance in ancient Europe and beyond (pls 8 and 9).InAncient Wiltshire(1812, 210) Richard Colt Hoare recorded the excavation of a barrow in a group of Bronze Age date at Wilsford: ‘No. 7 is a large bell-shaped barrow’ (now regarded as a bowl barrow) ‘composed entirely of vegetable earth. It contained within a cist a little pile of burned bones with which had been deposited a very fine brass pin, a large stone bead which had been stained red, a bead of ivory and a lance head of brass’. This account is based on the records of William Cunnington (1807, 5–6), which include a transcription of a letter from the original excavator, a Mr Owen. The dimensions of the barrow are there given as 80 ft in diameter, 9 ft high, with a circular cist 18 in deep. The barrow is described as ‘No. 6 of Mr Duke's barrows’; there is thus a discrepancy in the numbering of the barrow, since Colt Hoare referred to it as Lake No. 7, while Cunnington kept to No. 6. The barrow, though recently ploughed, still stands to a height of over 2 m, and is today known as G.42 (Grinsell 1957, 211).

Department of the Environment revealed an extensive Iron Age settlement and traces of widespread Roman agricultural and industrial activity at Wakerley, Northamptonshire (FIG. 2). The settlement was situated in Wakerley parish, immediately to the south of the road running between the villages of Wakerley and Harringworth and nine miles north-northeast of Corby 3 (FIG. 3). It was sited on sloping ground, overlooking the valley of the River Welland, and some \ mile from the river itself. From the site there are extensive views of the river valley to the north and west and of the hills and dales of Rutland that lie beyond. A deep natural gully occurs in the hillside, just to the west of the settlement and, as a result, the site is in an open position and fully exposed to the westerly winds. The settlement was located between the 250 and 300 ft. contours on a wide expanse of Lower Lincolnshire Limestone. Clays of the Lower Estuarine Series and outcrops of Northampton Sand and Ironstone occur on the lower slopes of the valley below the site and in the adjacent gully to the west. It is likely that a convenient supply of water would have been available in this gully in earlier periods, but this has been piped away in modern times. Some 150 m to the southwest , on the opposite side of the gully, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery was excavated by D. A. Jackson during 1968 and 1970 (report forthcoming). A small number of burials of Saxon date were found within the area of the excavation described below. Further to the southwest , some 600 m from the Iron Age and Roman site, the stone foundations of a Roman aisled barn, measuring 30 by 14 m, have also been excavated. The barn overlay earlier buildings and it is hoped that further work on this site will be possible in the future. Extensive quarrying southwest of the settlement has revealed isolated Iron 1 T. M. Ambrose has described the small finds and shared in the general preparation of this report. 2 A. L. Pacitto directed the excavation of an unusual concentration of iron-smelting furnaces, and his report is incorporated in the section on iron-working. P. J. Woods (with the assistance of R. E. Turland) excavated the three Romano-British pottery kilns and has described the results in this report. With the help of R. E. Turland he also carried out all the post-excavation work on the Romano-British pottery and has described and discussed the pottery in relation to the site as a whole. Grateful thanks are due to Miss S. A. Butcher for her report on the brooches and to Alison Cook for her report on the Anglo-Saxon grave-goods. Mr L. Biek and Dr R. F. Tylecote contributed to the section on iron-working, and thanks are due to them for visiting the site and making valuable suggestions during the excavations. Other specialist contributions are gratefully acknowledged from F.