Excavation of an Iron Age and Roman Enclosure at Werrington, Cambridgeshire

Abstract

The site was first noted on a high level vertical air photograph taken in 1964 by the Ordnance Survey, and a spread of Roman pottery was found to its immediate south-west, and running north, in a field survey carried out by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England). The site has not appeared on the extensive series of air photographs taken by Dr S.G. Upex, principally owing to the differing level of the local water-table: hardly any of the major geological markings which tend to mask all the archaeology are present on the Ordnance Survey series of the northern part of the parish.

The Landscape of Roman Britain: A Review

“…On the one hand there is evidehce of continuity and development of settlement from the late Iron Age, such as at Barton Court (Miles 1986) or Claydon Pike (Miles 1984) on the Thames gravels, and Stanwick on the Nene (Neal 1989), while, on the other, there are examples of desertion (as far as habitation is concerned) of settlements established in the early or middle Iron Age and rearrangement of associated fieldboundaries, trackways, etc., implying some form of continuing activity. Ashville (Parrington 1978) and Farmoor on the Thames (Lambrick & Robinson 1979), Fengate (Pryor 1984), Maxey (Pryor et al 1985), and Werrington on the Fen Edge (Mackreth 1988) would serve as examples of such sites which fade out in the early Roman period. The combination of successful settlements and the evidence for a minor reordering of the landscape setting of the failed sites seem to imply a reorganisation of estates, where successful farms perhaps absorbed the land of the deserted sites.…”

An Archaeological and Historical Review of the Relationships between Felids and People

“…In much of the Roman Empire the earliest-known remains of domestic cats (for example, in Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary and Switzerland) were found principally in Roman settlements (Bökönyi 1974;Maxwell 1975;Kirk 1977;Clason 1980;Rudling et al 1986;MacKreth et al 1988;Van Neer 1990;Lentacker and de Cupere 1994;Ellis et al 1999;Jores 2004;Canters et al 2005 and references therein), confirming that the Romans spread domestic cats throughout Europe (Kratochvil and Kratochvil 1976;Teichert 1977;Serpell 1988;Malek 1993;Daniels et al 1998;Clutton-Brock 1999). For example, bones of at least fourteen cats from a Roman villa in Pannonia (Hungary) (Bökönyi 1974(Bökönyi , 1984 is evidence of their rapid spread throughout Europe in the Roman period.…”