Excavations at Little Woodbury, Wiltshire (1938–39)

Abstract

The excavations of the Iron Age site at Little Woodbury were carried out by the Prehistoric Society in 1938–39 under the direction of Dr Gerhard Bersu. The first part of the report, published in Proc. Prehist. Soc. VI (1940), 30–111, was Dr Bersu's account of the structures revealed by excavation. This second part deals with the pottery, by far the most abundant material recovered, and discusses its significance for the history of the site and its relation to other Iron Age settlements in Wessex. The general conclusions are given first, and the detailed evidence on which they are based follows, with a catalogue of the pottery and two appendices.

The Iron Age settlement of Gussage All Saints. Part I. The settlement

“…(ii) To throw fresh light on the interpretation of markings on aerial photographs. The work was directed in 1938 and 1939 by Dr G. Bersu whose pioneer reconstruction of farming practice there has made it the type site for the mixed farming economy of the British Iron Age, fundamental to any understanding of settlement types (Bersu, 1940;Brailsford, 1948, By the end of the second season considerably more than one-third of the whole settlement of 15,000 sq. m. had been exposed vvithin an 1949).…”