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Bramcote Green, Bermondsey: a Bronze Age Trackway and Palaeo-Environmental Sequence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Christopher Thomas ,
James Rackham ,
A.J. Barham ,
N. Branch ,
J. Glorgi ,
D. Goodburn ,
J. Lowe ,
V. Neal ,
J. Rackham  and
D. Smith
...Show all authors
Christopher Thomas
Affiliation:
Museum of London Archaeological Service, Walker House, 87 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4AB
James Rackham
Affiliation:
25 Main Street, South Rauceby, Lincolnshire, NG34 8QG
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Abstract

An archaeological evaluation and excavation were carried out prior to a housing development in 1992, at Bramcote Green, in the London Borough of Southwark. Up to 3 m of organic rich, alluvial clay silts were deposited during the late Glacial period between about 12,000 BP and 9000 BP. A wide, shallow channel flowing south towards the Thames cut through the clay silts during the early Holocene and was filled with a series of clay and peat layers. Between 6000 BP and 4000 BP fast moving water channels formed on the marshy ground on the east side of the site and broader channels on the sand and gravel outcrop on the west side of the site. A subsequent rise in water levels, possibly seasonal, deposited inorganic muds across most of the site until c. 3500 BP. Over the filled-in channel were laid two phases of a wooden trackway which may have been laid across the marsh between high ground to the south and Bermondsey Island to the north. The earlier trackway consisted of two parallel lines of alder logs held in place by alder stakes. The second consisted of a single line of oak logs with alder stakes along one side. Radiocarbon dating of the second trackway places it in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. The site was covered by a thick layer of peat dated to the Late Bronze Age.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 62 , 1996 , pp. 221 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1996

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References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bramcote Green Archive reports:

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Goodburn, D.M. 1993. Report on the Prehistoric Woodwork from Bramcote Grove.

Smith, D. 1993. The Coleoptera from Bramcote Grove, Bermondsey.

Thomas, C. 1992a. An Archaeological Evaluation of the Bramcote Green Redevelopment at Bramcote Grove SE1.

Thomas, C. 1992b. A Watching Brief of 18 Test Pits Carried Out at the Bramcote Green Site.

Thomas, C. 1993. Report on the Archaeological Work at Bramcote Green.

Tyers, I.G. 1994. Bramcote Green Prehistoric Wood Species Identification and Dendrochronology, report no. DEN8/94.

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