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Page 90 THE EXCAVATIONS 92 EARLIER PREHISTORIC ACTIVITY 104 THE IRON AGE SETTLEMENT 104 LATE IRON AGE AND ROMANO-BRITISH SETTLEMENT 117 MEDIEVAL AND LATER ACTIVITY 124 THE FINDS 124 APPENDIX: INDEX TO MICROFICHE 133 The report on partial rescue excavations of the Collfryn enclosure between 1980-81 presents a summary of the first large-scale investigation of one of the numerous semi-defensive cropmark and earthwork enclosure sites in the upper Severn valley in mid-Wales. Earlier prehistoric activity of an ephemeral nature is represented by a scattering of Mesolithic and Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age flintwork, and by a pit containing sherds of several different Beaker vessels. The first enclosed settlement, constructed in about the 3rd century be probably consisted of three widely-spaced concentric ditches, associated with banks of simple dump construction, having a single gated entranceway on the downhill side. It covered an area of about 2.5 ha and appears to have been of a relatively high social status, and appropriate in size for a single extended-family group. This was subsequently reduced in about the ist century be to a double-ditched enclosure, by the recutting of the original inner ditch and the cutting of a new ditch immediately outside it. The habitation area between the 3 rd and ist centuries be probably focused on timber buildings in the central enclosure of about 0.4 ha, whose gradually evolving pattern appears to have comprised between 3-4 roundhouses and 4-5 four-posters at any one time. Little excavation was undertaken between the outer ditches of the first phase settlement, but these are assumed to have been used as stock enclosures. A mixed 1 The Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust, 7a Church Street, Welshpool, Powys, SYii 7DL 89 THE PREHISTORIC SOCIETY farming economy is suggested by cattle, sheep/goat and pig remains, and remains of glume wheats, barley and oats. Industries included small-scale iron and bronze-working. The Iron Age settlement was essentially aceramic, although there are significant quantities of a coarse, oxidized ceramic probably representing salt traded from production centres in the Cheshire Plain. The entranceway was remodelled in about the late ist or early 2nd, century AD by means of a timber-lined passage linked to a new gate on the line of the inner bank. There is equivocal evidence of continued occupation within the inner enclosure continuing until at least the mid-^th century AD, possibly at a comparatively low social level, associated with domestic structures of uncertain form sited on earlier roundhouse platforms, and including some four-posters and possible six-posters. Drainage ditches were dug across parts of the site during the Medieval and post-Medieval periods, which were associated with various structures, including a corn-drying kiln inserted into the inner enclosure bank in the 15th century.

Part I. The settlementIn thisJirst part G . J. Wainwrig.ht, of the Department of the Environment, discusses the total excavation in the spring and sunimer of 1972, by his Department under his direction, of the roughly circular enclosure at Giussage All Saints on Cranbourne Chase in Dorset. This probbm-orientated piece of research was deliberately organized with the intention of looking back at Dr Gerhardt Bersu's excavation of the site of Little Woodbury, near Salisbury, in 1938 and I939, which seemed to muny people to give the pattern of Iron Age life in southern Britain. Dr Wainwright begins by discussing how the Bersu Little Woodbury dig made it the type site of mixed jarming economy in the British Early Iron Age.* 2.4711 acres = I hectare (100 ares or IO,OOO sq. m.).

In November  metal detectorists located a decorated copper-alloy mirror, a single silver Knotenfibel brooch and some pottery sherds at Pegsdon, Shillington, Bedfordshire. Subsequent excavation of the findspot uncovered a Late Iron Age cremation burial pit associated with further pot sherds and a single fragment of calcined bone. The opportunity is taken in this preliminary account to revisit both the occurrence in southern England of the brooch type and to discuss the mirror's decoration in relation to the variation of views as to the British mirror series as a whole, and in particular with regard to other recent mirror discoveries. The burial is discussed in its local context and the possible significance of the topography in relation to the site is highlighted.At Pegsdon, in the parish of Shillington, Bedfordshire, spectacular finds have been made in recent years on the site of an apparently otherwise ordinary Romano-British rural settlement. The settlement lies on the Icknield Way, at the foot of the chalk scarp of the Chiltern Hills, on chalky clay colluvium over a solid geology of Lower Chalk. It extends between Kettledean Farm in the north and Pegsdon Common Farm to the south, centred at TL  . It is on the spring-line and a stream, now ditched, formerly rose on the uphill side of the settlement, just below the m contour line, flowing north west, then west, through the settlement that grew up on its banks from at least the Late Iron Age. The spring source issues from the mouth of a short deep dry valley, about m in length, running north west down the scarp rising to the south east. The scarp rises to about m OD while the settlement is situated on relatively flat ground between the m and m contours. A second small stream, also now ditched, emerges from the ground some m to the north of the settlement ( fig ) and again bisects the settlement, running north to south.Knocking Knoll, a Neolithic short-long burial mound, is sited on top of the scarp, approximately m north of the dry valley and m east of the settlement. Tingley Tumulus, a Bronze Age round barrow, lies on the scarp, close to the head of the dry valley, km south east of the settlement. Knocking Hoe, a very prominent, rounded spur of natural hard chalk, is located at the mouth of the dry valley, on its northern side. Looking from the settlement up and along the scarp, the view of the chalk landscape is indeed impressive.Knocking Knoll still stands proud on the skyline at the m contour after nearly , years; it must have been a focus of attention when it was first constructed in the early third millennium BC, showing as a large mound of white chalk gleaming in the sunshine. By the Late Iron Age/Romano-British periods, after enduring the best part of , years of weathering and erosion, and having become grassed over, it would have still been an impressive feature in the landscape. Even more visually dramatic is the Knocking Hoe spur, which rises to m, and the dry valley winding beneath it downhill towards t...

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