Bournemouth University

School of Conservation Sciences

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Joint Day School

Unquiet Lands: People and Landscapes in Prehistoric North West Europe

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Love’s Farm: An Iron Age Community on the Cambridgeshire Claylands
Mark Hinman

During 2005 a team of archaeologists from Cambridgeshire County Council’s CAM ARC (formerly Archaeological Field Unit) undertook an investigation at an Iron Age and Roman site lying on heavy clay soils at St Neots, near the western boundary of Cambridgeshire within an area of 60 ha, over half of which was stripped during the course of the excavation.
The Love’s Farm project will permit a detailed archaeological examination of the later prehistoric and Roman agricultural landscape on a previously unprecedented scale within Cambridgeshire. Investigations revealed evidence for the exploitation of the landscape in early prehistory and the origins and development of an agricultural community from the colonisation of the claylands in the later Iron Age through to the end of the Roman period and beyond.
The surrounding landscape was previously thought to owe its current appearance to post-enclosure agricultural practice. As a result of excavation it is now possible to trace many boundaries within the site back at least to the time of Cunobelin. A regular pattern of similar extant boundaries has also been identified within the surrounding landscape and appears to extend over several parishes.
Evidence for monuments, gravel extraction, road building and boundary maintenance was unearthed, with the potential to enhance current understanding of social organisation and the evolution of the countryside.
This paper will seek to raise awareness of this major development-led fieldwork project, illustrate the unique character of the site, speculate on the significance of some of the findings and demonstrate how the results of this work have changed current understanding of the evolution of Cambridgeshire’s western claylands.