Prehistoric Settlement in the Lower Kennet Valley Excavations at Green Park (Reading Business Park) Phase 3 and Moores Farm, Burghfield, Berkshire Oxford Archaeology Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph No 37 2013

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 dis -
cussing 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 1992
and 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.