Pegswood Moor, Morpeth
A Later Iron Age and Romano-British Farmstead Settlement
By Jennifer Proctor
PCA Monograph No. 11
Lying 8km inland on the Northumberland Coastal Plain Pegswood Moor
seems to have attracted its first permanent settlers around the
4th century BC. Initially a small and apparently isolated farmstead,
by the 2nd century BC this had expanded into an organized enclosed
settlement with areas set aside for stock-keeping, habitation, manufacturing
and processing activities, including pottery production. Evidence
suggests a mixed agricultural economy, whilst a droveway leading
towards the coast and field systems extending away from the focus
of habitation point to extensive exploitation of the wider landscape.
Towards the end of the 1st century AD there was a fundamental change
in the management of this landscape, with new boundaries established
on different alignments. Most striking was the construction of a
substantial timber enclosure built through the line of several roundhouse
dwellings - a seemingly deliberate and pointed statement. Tantalizingly,
no associated focus of habitation was found within the area of excavation
and, as with the majority of other excavated settlements in the
area, evidence for occupation after the 2nd century was absent.
The impetus for this sudden yet short-lived change can only be speculated
on - but the arrival of vast numbers of Roman troops in the region
with all their attendant requirements must surely be in part responsible.
Little artefactual evidence to indicate the influence of Rome was
recovered. However, the site did produce one of the largest assemblages
of native tradition pottery from the region, along with fragments
of briquetage suggesting connections with the coast. The presence
of whole quernstones, quern rubbers and mortars emphasises the importance
of crop processing to this community – that these were found
whole in boundary features suggests they held a symbolic significance.
As this publication shows, the extensive archaeological investigations
at Pegswood Moor have contributed greatly to our developing understanding
of settlement patterns in the Northumberland Coastal Plain during
the Later Iron Age.
PCA monograph 11 ‘Pegswood Moor, Morpeth’, 115 pp colour
throughout, price £14.95 is available from PCA (download
order form) or from Oxbow Books www.oxbowbooks.com
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