An Early Bronze Age Cremation Burial and Middle Iron Age Settlement at Eynsham

Between March and May 2022, Cotswold Archaeology carried out an archaeological excavation on land at the A40 Science Transit Phase 2 - Park and Ride development off Cuckoo Lane, Eynsham, Oxfordshire. The earliest evidence of human activity comprised an early Bronze Age cremation burial that contained a pyre good in the form of a worked phalanx of a large bird, probably a golden eagle. The main focus of activity, however, was a small, unenclosed middle Iron Age settlement comprising roundhouses, small enclosures, post-built structures and clusters of pits and postholes. Only small assemblages of artefacts and biological remains (animal bone and charred plant remains) were recovered from the settlement. Following a hiatus in activity during the late Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods the development area became the focus of agricultural land-use during the medieval and post-medieval periods.