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Neolithic House

The Neolithic house at Horton is a rare and ex- from England. The Horton house is one of the
citing discovery. It is thought to be well over most complete examples yet found.
5,000 years old.
The house is thought to date to about 3,700BC.
The single story house was 9½ metres long by Pieces of pottery and flint tools from the house
6½ metres wide. The walls were probably and some nearby pits are consistent with this
made of split logs and the pitched roof would dating.
have been covered with reeds or grass.
Remains of plants show that wild foods like
Two partition walls divided the house into two. hazelnuts were being gathered. Some cereal
These walls could have supported upper floors grains show that crops were grown but there
in part of the house. are not many of them. This shows that the
change to farming was a slow one.
There are traces of what might have been a
hearth in the centre of the house. There was
not a chimney. Smoke seeped out through the
roof which was high enough to avoid catching
fire from sparks from the fire.

Only about a dozen Neolithic houses are known

Wessex Archaeology
HORTON’S HIDDEN PAST

Excavations at CEMEX Kingsmead Quarry have


revealed part of the hidden history of Horton.
Archaeologists have made finds that span over
12,000 years, dating back to the end of the
last Ice Age.

Before the quarry was extended, teams of


archaeologists worked for months, painstak-
ingly excavating buried traces of this forgot-
ten history.

At the end of the Ice Age

The oldest finds date to the end of the last


Ice Age. Flint tools used by people who
hunted animals and gathered wild foods like
fruits and nuts have been discovered.

At this time, about 12,000 years ago, Britain Flint knives found at Horton
was not an island. A land-bridge still linked
Britain to the continent. This land bridge was
flooded by water from the melting ice caps
about 8,000 years ago.
Horton

Sta
nwe
ll R
oad

0 50 100m

Neolithic
house

Edge of excavations
Archaeological features
Old river channel
Bronze Age field system

Plan showing the archaeology


excavated so far.

www.wessexarch.co.uk
Design by W.Foster

Wessex Archaeology
The First Farmers
Slowly, hunting and gathering food was re-
placed by keeping animals and growing crops.
A very rare and important discovery is the site
of a house which dates to this time, the Neo-
lithic period (over 5000 years ago).

The house is rectangular and was divided into


two parts. Maybe cattle were kept in one half
and people lived in the other half.

Small rubbish pits, often containing broken


pottery, have also been found, but there are no
fields. The remains of left over foods found by
the archaeologists show that wild foods were
still an important part of the diet.

Not far from the quarry the remains of a Neo-


lithic burial mound have been found.

Darker soil marks the site of the Neolithic House


Wessex Archaeology
The Bronze Age
Hunting continued to be important at the be-
ginning of the metal age. An unusual find
dating to about 4,000 years ago was a cache
of 8 flint arrowheads buried in a pit with some
flint tools and a leather-working tool made of
bronze. These show that stone and metal
tools were used together.

Around 3,500 years ago, in the middle of the


Bronze Age, the landscape was changed dra-
matically as large field systems were set out.
The size of the excavations allows us to see
the scale of these changes. These fields mark
the beginning of the modern landscape.
Flint arrowheads

There are also many water holes showing that


in some years animals grazed the fields. The
burials of a dozen animals were found, almost
all cattle.

Remains of barley and emmer wheat that had


been threshed and winnowed show what was
grown in the fields. Although no
houses/buildings have been found, finds of
stone querns used to grind the corn and clay
crucibles used to melt the copper for metal
objects, suggest a farm stood close by.

A large, elegant, bronze pin had been used to


pin the cloak of a Bronze Age farmer. Bronze Age pot

A cattle burial Scale (0.5 metre) Bronze pin


Barley, one of the crops grown during the Bronze Age
in the area of Horton

Archaeologists excavating part of the Bronze Age field system

Burial, perhaps of Bronze Age date

Wessex Archaeology
Iron Age and Roman
There are fewer finds from the end of the
Bronze Age and Iron Age. This shows that the
area was not used as intensively. But some cir-
cular houses have been found and they are as
large as a modern semi-detached. They would
have had conical, thatched, roofs. Grain was
stored near to some houses in small square
buildings raised on stilts.

Activity increased again in the Roman times,


about 1,700 years ago. The ditches around Entrance
Iron Age fields were cleaned out and new
fields were set out. Some houses continued to
be circular but clay roof tiles will have come
from a building in the Roman style.

The tiles were found along with a lot of other 0 5 10m

objects in one area. This suggests that a large


Part of the Horton site showing the location of an
farm stood near by. Iron Age roundhouse

Artistic impression of an Iron Age roundhouse in Berkshire

Modern reconstruction of an Iron Age roundhouse


Roman leather shoe

Part of a Roman safety pin style brooch

Glass bead Roman pottery imported from Gaul (France)

Wessex Archaeology
A Changing Landscape
After the Romans

There are almost no finds from the Anglo-


Saxon and medieval period. This may be be-
cause settlements from this time lie beneath
modern ones. Instead of new farms being built
at new places in the landscape, hamlets and
villages grew up.

Horton Manor lies to the west of the quarry and


it owned much of the surrounding land. Unlike
earlier times, the landscape was not divided
into fields. The low lying land was mainly used
for grazing animals.

A Changing Landscape

The landscape around Horton has changed


many times over the years. The first people
came to Horton at the end of the Ice Age when
Britain was not an island. Old river channels
show that the Colne Brook has changed its Excavation boundary
course many times.
1881 Ordnance Survey Map showing the location of Horton Manor
Today, planes fly overhead and the landscape is
changing but when the quarrying for gravel is
done, the quarry will be filled in and in time
used for farming again. The present day CEMEX processing plant with Heathrow’s new
Terminal 5 visible in the distance.
Wessex Archaeology

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