Cultivating the Margins: The Roman and Early Medieval Rural Landscape of Barton Park, Oxford

Late in 2015 an area of land west of Barton Park on the outskirts of Oxford was excavated in advance of a proposed housing development. The excavated features comprised remains of Romano-British and later field systems including rectilinear enclosures and possible trackways, perhaps representing a number of sequential attempts to cultivate an area of poor and frequently waterlogged land. These features were overlain and truncated by medieval ridge and furrow. The pottery assemblage from the site was paltry comprising little more than forty identifiable sherds of Roman or medieval date. There were, however, some notable isolated finds including a middle Bronze-Age pit, an early Roman cremation burial, and a single first-century AD Roman coin. Furthermore, residual finds of a spearhead and knife, although more than 200 metres apart, indicate the possibility of an early Anglo-Saxon inhumation cemetery in the vicinity Finally, a modest assemblage of medieval and post-medieval horseshoes possibly indicates that the site was once situated along a routeway, perhaps between the medieval settlements ofHeadington and Wick.