Iron Age settlement.


This group of raised platform earthworks was investigated by Dr Gerhard Bersu in 1941-42 and again in 1943-44. The two larger sites have a rath-like appearance, but investigation suggested to the excavator that the two larger earthworks represented massive timber-built roundhouses with turf-covered roofs supported on roughly concentric rings of posts and walls formed from thick earthen banks.


The two smaller earthworks were only subject to smaller-scale testing. One produced worked flint of later Mesolithic date.


Two samples from the few timbers that were retained provided uncalibrated radiocarbon dates falling in the 3rd century BC.


Subsequent discoveries of dwellings of a similar period in the British Isles have not replicated Bersu's interpretation, and it would instead appear that the concentric rings of posts supported a platform (bounded by the massive earthen bank) on which were constructed a succession of smaller timber roundhouses.