Crop-Mark Sites at Mucking, Essex

M. U. Jones; V. I. Evison; J. N. L. Myres

doi:10.1017/S0003581500034892

Crop-Mark Sites at Mucking, Essex

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2011

M. U. Jones ,

V. I. Evison and

J. N. L. Myres

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The purpose of this paper is briefly to make known investigation of an area of Thames terrace gravel in Essex (at N.G.R. TQ 673 803) before its rapid destruction by quarrying (pi. XLVII and figs. 1 and 2). With work still continuing, and with the bulk of the finds and records yet to be synthesized, archaeological observations must necessarily be provisional.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , September 1968 , pp. 210 - 230

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500034892 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1968

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^{page 210 note 1} Antiquity, xxxviii (1964), 217Google Scholar and pi. xxxvii b.

^{page 210 note 2} This range has since been extended with the discovery of a grave containing an all over corded beaker and eleven barbed-and-tanged flint arrow-heads in association.

^{page 210 note 3} Barton, K. J., ‘Settlements of the Iron Age and Pagan Saxon Periods at Linford, Essex’, Trans. Essex Arch. Soc, 3rd series, i, 57–104Google Scholar.

^{page 210 note 4} Manning, W. H., ‘Excavations of an Iron Age and Roman Site at Chadwell St. Mary, Essex’, Trans. Essex Arch. Soc, 3rd series, i, 127–40Google Scholar.

^{page 212 note 1} See Section IV (p. 228).

^{page 212 note 2} Cf. the discovery of a Bronze Age barrow on lower ground nearby at TQ 673 789—Bannister, K., ‘Barrow at East Tilbury, Essex’, Thurrock Local History Society Journal, vi (1961)Google Scholar.

^{page 212 note 3} Cf. the plan of Warbstow Bury, Cornwall— Aileen Fox, ‘South-western Hill-Forts’, Frere, S. S., ed., Problems of the Iron Age in Southern Britain, 1958Google Scholar.

^{page 214 note 1} In a letter to the writer dated 28th March 1967.

^{page 214 note 2} Cf. R. E. M., and Wheeler, T.V., ‘Verulamium— a Belgic and two Roman cities’, Res. Rep. of Soc. Antiq., no. xi, 1936, pl. lviGoogle Scholarb.

^{page 214 note 3} Cf. Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxxii (1966), 349Google Scholar.

^{page 214 note 4} Cf. R.C.H.M. (England), A Matter of Time (H.M.S.O., 1960), p. 28: ‘most of the certain examples (of pit-alignments) run at right angles to the nearby river’.

^{page 215 note 1} Isolated cremation-burials of the Iron Age and Roman periods, and undated, have also been found.

^{page 215 note 2} Identified by Mr. D. F. Allen, F.S.A.

^{page 215 note 3} Of lava, millstone grit, puddingstone, and sarsen.

^{page 215 note 4} Fortunately, modern disturbance of the gravel is comparatively slight: boundary ditches, steamplough scratches of the 1930s, sheep and horse burials, hand dug gravel ‘pits’, gravel test holes.

^{page 215 note 5} Cf. n. 3, p. 210.

^{page 216 note 1} Dodgson, John McNeal, ‘The significance of the distribution of the English place-name in -ingas, -inga- in south-east England’, Medieval Archaeology, x (1966), 1CrossRef Google Scholar ff.

^{page 216 note 2} Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire (Archaeologia, lxiii, lxxvi, and xciii) and West Stow Heath, Suffolk —another rescue excavation—are the only other sites where Saxon huts have been discovered in quantity.

^{page 216 note 3} Cf. van Es, W. A., ‘Wijster—a native village beyond the Imperial frontier, 150–425 A.D.’, Palaeohistoria, xi (1967), 273Google Scholar and figs. 165–6.

^{page 216 note 4} Wheeler, R. E. M., ‘London and the Saxons’, London Museum Catalogue no. 6, 1935, p. 136Google Scholar and fig. 19.

^{page 216 note 5} See n. 3, p. 210.

^{page 216 note 6} Groningen Museum.

^{page 216 note 7} As also from West Stow Heath (information from Mr. Stanley West), and from Upton, Northamptonshire (information from Mr. D. A. Jackson).

^{page 216 note 8} The Saxon graves were not recognized from the crop-mark photographs (where they can now be discerned as a poorly developed rash of spots) probably because the graves are both shallow and contain much gravel in their fills.

^{page 217 note 1} D. B. Harden, ‘Glass Vessels in Britain and Ireland, A.D. 400–1000’, in Dark Age Britain (ed. D. B. Harden), (1956), pp. 140, 1 59.

^{page 217 note 2} Åberg, N., The Anglo-Saxonsin England’ (1926), pp. 42Google Scholar ff.

^{page 217 note 3} Leeds, E. T., ‘The Distribution of the Angles and Saxons Archaeologically Considered’, Archaeologia, xci (1945), fig. 38Google Scholar.

^{page 218 note 1} Bakka, E., ‘On the beginnings of Salin's Style I in England’, Universitet i Bergen Arbok (1958)Google Scholar, Hist. Ark. Rekke Nr. 3, fig. 17; cf. figs. 16 and 25.

^{page 218 note 2} Werner, J., Die Fibeln der Sammlung Diergardt, i (1961), 57Google Scholar, Taf. 16, 69–72, Taf. 52.

^{page 218 note 3} Åberg, N., Den Historiska Relationen mellan Folkoandringstid och Vendeltid (1953)Google Scholar, fig. 88.

^{page 218 note 4} Shetelig, H., ‘The Cruciform Brooches of Norway’, Bergens Museum Aarbog (1906)Google Scholar, 2, fig. 169.

^{page 218 note 5} Strömberg, M., Untersuchungen zur jüngeren Eisenzeit in Schonen, ii (1961)Google Scholar, Taf. 56, 3 b.

^{page 218 note 6} Mackeprang, M. B., De Nordisker Guldbrak, teater (1952), pp. 120–1Google Scholar, No. 60, pi. 23, 12–15.

^{page 218 note 7} Leeds, E. T., A Corpus of Early Anglo-Saxon Great Square-headed Brooches (1949)Google Scholar, No. 27.

^{page 218 note 8} Cf. Dorchester, fig. 1 on p. 239.

^{page 222 note 1} I have noted three such pieces among the unpublished potsherds from Sutton Courtenay in the Ashmolean Museum, and there is at least one more in the British Museum.

^{page 222 note 2} I am greatly indebted to Mr. Stanley West for allowing me to examine all the material from his excavations at the West Stow Heath village, which includes so far some three or four sherds of this kind.

^{page 222 note 3} Dark Age Britain, ed. D. B. Harden (1956), pp. 22–6 and figs. 3 and 4.

^{page 224 note 1} Dark Age Britain, ed. D. B. Harden (1956), pp. 34–9.

^{page 224 note 2} Ibid., p. 28 and fig. 5, nos. 3–6.

^{page 224 note 3} See ibid., fig. 5, nos. 1 and 2, for other examples of its use on early Anglo-Saxon pots from Abingdon and Cambridge. Among English examples on metalwork may be mentioned a bronze penannular brooch found with a fifth-century pedestal pot at Feering, Essex (Colchester Museum), and a bronze ring from Reading, Gr. 13, also associated with a fifth-century pedestal pot, and a zoomorphic buckle of Type I A: Med. Arch, v (1961), 44Google Scholar, fig. 14 b. It occurs also on the Mucking and Orpington buckles discussed below by Miss Evison, pp. 231 ff.

^{page 224 note 4} See examples from sites in Thuringia illustrated in Med. Arch, iii (1959), 10, fig. 2: and other parts of north Germany in Probleme der Kiistenfor schung im siidlicken Nordseegebiet, vi (1957)Google Scholar, Taf. 8. 9: 14. 4: 16. 2, 12: 17. 5 a: 23. 2.

^{page 224 note 5} A. Genrich, Formenkreise und Stammen gruppen in Schleswig Holstein (1954), pp. 9, 22, 27 and Tafel 14B.

^{page 225 note 1} The only complete English example known to me is that from Mitcham Gr. 205, Surrey Arch, Coll. lvi (1959)Google Scholar, pi. xix: other single fragmentary ones come from Ham (near Richmond, Surrey) and Dorchester-on-Thames (1963 excavations, unstratified). Small sherds from more than one piece each are among the unpublished pottery from Sutton Courtenay, and West Stow Heath. Apart from the last site and one eccentric variant from Kirton Lindsey, Lines. (Arch. Journ. cviii (1952), 94 and pi. in. 2), the distribution is thus confined at present to the Thames Valley.

^{page 225 note 2} Trans. Essex Arch. Soc. 3rd series, i, 34 and pl. v. 2.

^{page 226 note 1} Feddersen Wierde F 849 C a is among many continental examples of this simple arrangement.

^{page 226 note 2} Dark Age Britain, ed. D. B. Harden (1956), pp. 29–30 and figs. 5, 9–11. An Anglo-Saxon example, close in type to the carinated bowls, is that from Kempston, Beds, ibid., fig. 5, 7.

^{page 226 note 3} e.g. those from Wehden and Perlberg, now at Hannover: Ant. Journ. xxxiv (1954), 205Google Scholar, figs. 2, 6, and 8: or the English example from Castle Acre in Norf. Arch, xxvii, 193 and pi. 2, 7.

^{page 226 note 4} e.g. Feddersen Wierde F 908 D a, which is very like the latter. s e.g. the burial with pedestal bowl, rosette, and tubular attachments and characteristic strap end from Blumenthal, near Bremen, E. Grohne, Mahn dorf (1953), p. 139, fig. 47: or that at Helle, near Oldenburg, with a shallow bowl and similar belt fittings, Bonner Jahrbiicher, clviii (1958), 372Google Scholar, fig. 11. Hut 26 at Mucking, whose contents had not been sorted in time for detailed study in this report, contained the significant association of a bronze tubular attachment, and a pedestal base and cabled carination from bowls of the early type.

^{page 227 note 1} The piece from Canterbury illustrated in The Civitas Capitals of Roman Britain, ed. J. S. Wacher (1966), p. 90, fig. 18, 1, is a good example of the type.

^{page 227 note 2} Two little pots from Herredsbjerget near Ribe are very similar to the Mucking piece. I have noted parallels to this Kentish group from about a dozen sites in Jutland, and there may well be many others.

^{page 228 note 1} This is especially true of the pieces of a stamped pot from Hut 2 which bear some resemblance to Feddersen Wierde F 902 D a. But not enough is preserved of either to indicate whether this has significance.

^{page 228 note 2} Cambridge University Museum of Arch, and Eth. 50. 115: not illustrated in the Lackford report.

^{page 228 note 3} Illington 47, Norwich Castle Museum.

^{page 228 note 4} R.C.H.M. (England), op. cit., p. 46.

^{page 229 note 1} Although present-day ploughing is shallow, deeper cultivations by steam plough took place in the 1930s, and in places these closely parallel plough scratches are easily recognizable.

^{page 229 note 2} Cf. Nylen, Erik, ‘A Turret for Vertical Photography’, Antikvariskt Arklv, xxiv (1964)Google Scholar.

^{page 230 note 1} Cf. the plan of the Anglo-Saxon settlement at Little Paxton, Hunts. (Medieval Archaeology, viii (1964), fig. 80). Even without accompanying text and finds, such settlement area plans as those of Feddersen Wierde on the north German coast and of Odoorn in Holland, seen by the kindness of Dr. P. Schmid and Professor H. T. Waterbolk respectively, can provide much data for comparative study.

^{page 230 note 2} Work by the writer at Lechlade, Glos., not yet published.

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