Wykham Park Farm Banbury Oxfordshire

Oxford Archaeology was commissioned by The Environmental Dimension
Partnership, on behalf of L&Q Estates Ltd, to undertake an archaeological
excavation prior to the proposed construction of up to 1000 dwellings
together with a mixed-use local centre on the southern outskirts of Banbury,
Oxfordshire. Six excavation areas totalling c 5ha were opened, targeted on the
results of the preceding geophysical survey and two phases of trial-trench
evaluation. Two excavation areas were targeted on possible ring ditches that
had been identified from cropmark evidence, but neither the evaluation nor
the excavation was able to find any evidence for archaeological features at
these locations. In addition to the excavation areas, an area where the
Wykham Farm causewayed enclosure extended into the development area
was designated as an Area of Archaeological Preservation, to be preserved in
situ beneath sports pitches.
Neolithic evidence, some of it probably representing activities associated with
the causewayed enclosure, included a pit and a tree-throw hole that
contained sherds of early Neolithic Plain Ware pottery, a pair of pits with
middle Neolithic Mortlake Ware, and a feature that produced a late Neolithic
radiocarbon date and is likely to represent a cremation burial or a pair of such
features.
A group of three unurned cremation burials was attributed to the middle
Bronze Age on the basis of radiocarbon dates from two of them, and an
isolated inhumation burial that was radiocarbon dated to the late 6th or 5th
century cal BC. No other features or artefactual material from either of these
periods was found, suggesting that the burials were located away from areas
of settlement.
Following an apparent hiatus of several centuries, there was a burst of
settlement and agricultural activity that extended from the 1st century BC to
the end of the 1st century AD. Two discrete enclosures may represent
successive late Iron Age settlements, and a field system continued into the
early Roman period, when a third enclosure, possibly for livestock, was
constructed beside it. The features form part of an extensive though shortlived
episode of occupation, and it is possible that the Iron Age enclosures
represent the pastoral component of a farmstead with a domestic and arable
focus located at a complex of enclosures that has been separately excavated
in the fields adjacent to the east.