Drayton Road, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, Post Excavation Assessment and Research Design

As part of a joint Oxford University (OU) and Oxford Archaeology (OA) project to investigate Saxon settlement and society in the area around Sutton Courtenay, OA carried out a research evaluation at Drayton Road, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire. This work was funded by English Heritage. The evaluation revealed features and finds covering a wide span from Mesolithic to the Anglo-Saxon period. Within the four trenches excavated, discoveries of particular significance included a gully and seven pits in the NE of the site with an important assemblage of early Saxon pottery. A punishment burial was found adjacent to this trench in a test pit. A Saxon timber hall was also investigated and an early to mid Saxon waterhole, a group of Neolithic pits and several Roman ditches were examined. Saxon pottery was found in the upper fill of a Roman trackway ditch. Fieldwalking, metal detecting and test-pit sieving recovered a wide variety of material, mainly of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age date, but also a human jaw fragment from the area where Anglo-Saxon cemetery finds had previously been recovered by metal detectorists.