Evolution of a Farming Community in the Upper Thames Valley Excavation of a Prehistoric, Roman and Post-Roman Landscape at Cotswold Community, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Volume 2: The Finds and Environmental Reports

The site at Cotswold Community in the western reaches of the Upper Thames Valley has been a focus of human activity since Neolithic times. Successive Bronze Age, Iron Age & roman settlements developed within an increasingly open grassland landscape, which was heavily exploited for the growing of crops and grazing of animals. The spiritual lives of the inhabitants were glimpsed through a series of structured pit deposits and ritual monuments, including a potential Neolithic timber circle and Bronze Age round barrows.
One of the most striking landscape features was a late Bronze Age / early Iron Age pit alignments that extended over 500m. possibly marking one of the earliest attempts at marking territory on a large scale. It was still a visible feature for some time as it partly dictated the position of the boundaries of the Roman farmstead, which occupied the site from 1st to 4th centuries AD. The farm lay in the shadow of Roman Cirencester less than 5km to the north and may even have been involved in the recycling of refuse from this important urban centre. Following abandonment of the Roman farmstead there was no further occupation of the site, although a small number of Saxon agricultural structures indicate continuing use of the land, which may now have been part of a locally-centered Saxon estate.