Prehistoric Settlement in the Lower Kennet Valley

This volume presents the results of two excavations on the gravel terraces of the Lower Kennet Valley: the third phase of work at Green Park (Reading Business Park) and excavations nearby at Moores Farm, Burghfield, Berkshire. The Green Park excavations uncovered a field system and occupation features dating to the middle to late Bronze Age. Five waterholes or wells were distributed across the field system, the waterlogged fills of which preserved wooden revetment structures and valuable environmental evidence. The pottery assemblages from the waterholes are of significant interest for our understanding of the middle to late Bronze Age transition in the region. Later activity included middle to late Iron Age boundaries, a late Iron Age cremation burial, a Romano-British field system and post-medieval trackways. The Moores Farm excavations revealed occupation from the Mesolithic, Neolithic, middle Bronze Age and early Iron Age. The middle Bronze Age settlement included pits, ovens and possible post structures, and was again situated within a contemporary field system dotted with waterholes. As well as discussing these two individual sites, the volume provides an overview of all of the work to date in the Green Park Farm/Reading Business Park area (previously reported in Moore and Jennings 1992and Brossler et al. 2004), exploring the development of this important pre historic landscape. It is argued that significant changes in the inhabitation of this landscape between the middle and late Bronze Age can now be identified.