Excavation of Poss Iron Age Boundary at Wasperton

Description of this historic site

Archaeological excavation discovered the line of a ditch which was visible as a linear feature on aerial photographs. The ditch appears to date to the Iron Age, from finds of pottery, and possibly marks the line of a boundary. It is located to the east of the River Avon.

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Notes about this historic site

1 A ‘territorial boundary’ excavated between 1980 and 1985 in advance of gravel extraction. This boundary was traced from the SW corner of Field 1 to the NE corner of Field 2 – from where it can be followed on aerial photographs to the present village of Wasperton. It appears to define a territory defined by a large meander in the River Avon. This territory comprised a stretch of the gravel terrace, and a large tract of meadowland on the floodplain. The boundary first appeared in the SW corner of Field 1 as a simple gully 0.9m wide by 0.5m deep; for most of its length, however, it had been ‘reinforced’ – large oval pits, about 3.5m long and 1m deep, had been dug almost contiguously and the upcast placed on the W edge. Few artefacts were recovered from the earlier ditch, or its later reinforcement; they consisted entirely of sherds of handmade pottery, with fabrics characteristic of the first millenium BC.
2 Scheduled as Warwickshire Monument No 143.
5 Scheduling information.
6 Dating revised to Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age.