Sutton Common Updated project design - University of Exeter

amendments to the original project design included: looking beyond the settlement’s boundary
(p. 10), excavation of terminals (p. 10), extended palaeoenvironmental sampling (p. 14), fullscale
metal detecting of the site (p. 15), and the sieving of deposits, especially those that
were thought to be potentially artefact bearing deposits (p. 15)
Phase 0: (Mesolithic to Bronze Age)
This phase includes all activities that precede the enclosure of the site; this embraces the
Mesolithic, Neolithic and possibly Bronze Age period flints (including a number of arrowheads)
that have been found either in the ploughsoil or within the natural sediments, the result of
downward translocation, and the Bronze Age period bronze artefacts that have been deposited
in ‘wet places’ in the wider landscape (fully discussed by Parker Pearson and Sydes 1993).
Importantly, no in situ features such as hearths proceeding Phase 1a have ever been identified
at Sutton Common. It also includes extensive evidence for the landscape development of the
Sutton Common site, including the existence of an alder carr environment within the area of
the former Hampole Beck, possibly up to the enclosure of the site in Phase 1a.
The reason for recognising these activities as a phase within the current project lies in the
increased recognition for the use of the ‘past in the past’, of ‘landscape memory’ or (if one so
wishes) a phenomenology of landscape that emphasises the importance of past human
activities to prehistoric and early historic societies. This concept will play an important role in
explaining Phase III (see below). It must be emphasised here that we do not suggest that the
presence of early prehistoric material culture or the knowledge of this activity provides an
explanation for the location of the enclosures, but we do recognise that a focus on wetlands
existed well before the enclosures were constructed. Rather, by not discussing the
archaeological activity preceding the enclosure of the site, we may stand accused of omitting
information that within current archaeological thinking is considered important. Also, the
inclusion of this archaeological material will provide a human element to the description of
landscape history and development. The research to date on the palaeoenvironment suggest
that the Hampole Beck was no longer a flowing river by the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age
date. The flora is dominated by alder carr, which was cleared sometime in later phases of
prehistory.
Phase Ia: (enclosure of the site – provisionally: early-middle Iron Age)
The excavations have revealed that the defences surrounding the larger enclosure belong to
one rather than two separate phases. In the past, the so-called palisade was believed to
predate the earthen ramparts, but this was found to be a misinterpretation of the evidence. In
fact, the timbers which had been interpreted as the palisade appear to form a ‘spine’ of
(presumably sharpened) stakes within a low earthen bank. Rather than predating the box
rampart (see below), it is more likely that this bank was constructed (soon) after the box
rampart, and that these multivallate defences formed part of a coherent ‘design’.
In retrospect, the reasons for the misinterpretation are understandable and explainable. During
past excavations, the ‘palisade’ was shown as a somewhat irregular or sinuous line of
sharpened stakes beneath the remains of the Iron Age earthen embankment. The excavation
technique adopted by Whiting, i.e. digging narrow trenches through earthen banks, would not
have established the presence of post-pipes within these banks (Whiting 1937), whilst the
scale of the excavations in the 1980s was too limited to notice any post-pipes in the now
ephemeral remains of the banks after these had been bulldozed (Parker Pearson and Sydes
1997). However, post-pipes (and occasionally the stakes themselves) were found within bank
remains during 2003, notably at the eastern end of the site.
Nevertheless, in previous publications, this line of stakes was interpreted as pre-dating the
earthworks and, with reference to the south of England where several early development of
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