Archaeological Account

Michael J Jones and David Stocker

comment (Fig. 5.2). Stone tools known and collected by the 1970s showed no great concentrations in the Lincoln area (Cummins and Moore 1973; May 1976, 53–7; Moore 1979), although most came from the east side of the city in or close to the valley. The most recent study indicates little change in the pattern (McKerrell Clough, and Cummins 1988). Analysis of the material from the area of the city suggests that the distribution pattern of finds made since c.1970, all in secondary contexts, may merely reflect the locations of investigations, although it is notable that they have been found only in the areas where we have deduced solid ground using other criteria. That is, they have all been made in the lower part of town close to the river. A recent exception is represented by the finding of a cluster of 138 knapped flints of mesolithic to early bronze-age date close to the Roaring Meg spring, 1km north-east of the Upper City, which may indicate small-scale domestic occupation for the later part of this period (Bonner 1999). It may be relevant, how-ever, that the Roaring Meg spring has been identified here as a potential ritual site in the Roman period (RAZ 7.17).

At present, we can provide little context for these early finds from within the city boundary. It has long been presumed that the Witham gap lies across the path of the long-distance route-way known as the Jurassic Way, which is thought to have followed the cliff edge throughout its length in the county (Grimes 1951). The very existence of the Jurassic Way as a long-distance route (at least in Northamptonshire) is open to serious doubt (Taylor 1979, 32–7), but even the sternest critics of such proposed long-distance trackways agree that, in places where they follow prominent ridges, such route-ways are likely to be of great antiquity. But, even though such a ridge-way is very likely to have existed somewhere along the top Until the 1970s, the foundation of a settlement at

Lincoln was thought to be a characteristically Roman action, one impelled by the strategic value of its geographical position for military control. Hence Frere could write, in his classic work on Roman Britain, ‘to Rome we owe the choice of such sites as... Lincoln ...’

(1967, 3) . This was a reasonable deduction at the time of writing of the first edition, as excavations in the city had produced no definite evidence for pre-Roman occupation, but the work undertaken over the last thirty years (and not brought forward until the present publication) now casts some uncertainty on Frere’s unequivocal position.

It was only with the expansion of rescue archae-ology, and the adoption of a more comprehensive approach to the city’s past from 1972, that investigation of a site over 200m south of the walled city (at 181–3 High Street) brought to light the first traces of late iron-age occupation (HG 72). Given its location and depth, buried beneath c.3m of later deposits, it was not surprising that such evidence had been so long in coming. The discovery also took place against an increasing awareness of the iron-age background of much of Romano-British settlement (e.g. Cunliffe 1991), including that of Lincolnshire itself, for which our knowledge has continued to grow (e.g. May 1976; 1984;

1988; 1994; 1996).

It is now clear, however, that the site of what ultimately became the city of Lincoln was of im-portance to the region from a much earlier date (Fig.

5.1). The Witham gap through the limestone hills could not fail to be a nodal site – a site where different societies would locate key events and activities, even if those activities merely reflected attempts to cross the river itself. Neolithic and bronze-age flint im-plements of various types have been found within the city boundary, and their distribution calls for some

of the scarp of the Lincoln Edge in prehistory, like most other early roads, it is impossible to date.

In 1914, a fine ‘shouldered’ collared urn of the early Bronze Age was found in a ‘sand-pit’. It probably originated in a barrow near the site of the Canwick water-treatment works (May 1976, 85, fig. 48) (Fig.

5.3). It is not certain where precisely this urn was discovered, but in 1914 construction work was un-derway at the City Council’s new rubbish destructor plant, in Canwick parish (Mills 2001, fig. 6), and this might locate the find (Fig. 5.4). This was an important discovery, but it was not recognised until very recently that the urn may represent an outlier of an extensive barrow-cemetery in the valley bottom. Documents from the 17th and 18th centuries refer to ‘barrows’

hereabouts (Mills J and D 1997), whilst study of aerial photographs of the low-lying land adjacent to both banks of the river (in both Greetwell and the former Canwick parishes), close to what is now the eastern District boundary, has revealed up to thirteen possible round barrows (NMP; SMR). The group on the Greet-well side also includes a possible long barrow (or oval barrow or mortuary enclosure) – an outlier to the normal distribution (D Jones 1998, 113–4, no.65).

Furthermore, another group of dispersed cropmarks, probably also indicating barrows, extends along the

north side of the river up to 1km to the east, although it is conceivable that some of these marks were caused by ironstone mining (Hockley 1992c; Trimble 1997).

Other finds from this area include two bronze pal-staves closer to the river (SMR). Finds of similar urns to that found in 1914 are also known from both Canwick Heath Farm and Gallow Hill on the hilltop (but outside the city boundary). The barrows associ-ated with these finds overlook the valley and are some 1–1.5 km south-west of the main barrow group in the valley floor, although they cannot be said to belong to the riparian cemetery. They would, however, have been notable features marking the skyline as seen from the cemetery below. More barrows have been identi-fied during investigations in 1999 on the hilltop in Greetwell parish, at a site that also produced Beaker pottery (Field et al. 2001). Part of one was excavated, and two others are suggested by geophysical work.

Their prominent positions can be directly compared with those on the opposite hillside at Canwick.

The presence of all these features demonstrates that the valley was occupied hereabouts, if only by the dead; furthermore this ritual landscape extended downstream. There were also early and middle-bronze-age barrow fields in the floodplain of the Witham in Washingborough parish, just 5km down-Fig. 5.1. Middle Witham Valley showing known prehistoric features (drawn by Dave Watt, copyright English Heritage).

Fig. 5.2. Distribution of prehistoric flint artefacts in the city area, based on research by M J Jones and A Lee. Swanpool is shown in its modern location (drawn by Dave Watt, copyright English Heritage).

stream of Canwick (Wilkinson 1986–7, 55; SMR).

Indeed, we now have evidence that many locations in the river valley floor between Lincoln and Tattershall were regarded as appropriate sites for the burial of the dead and at least five such barrow cemeteries have been noted in these reaches (Stocker and Everson 2003). At a somewhat later date, in the late Bronze Age, valley crossings near all of these five barrow groups may have been marked with elaborate timber causeways (Field and Parker-Pearson 2003; Stocker and Everson 2003). At these points, then, it seems the early bronze-age barrow cemeteries, like that now known from Canwick, were accompanied by late bronze-age causeways as the water levels in the peat-choked river rose. We should suspect, therefore, that there may also have been a late bronze-age causeway across the valley close to Lincoln. In fact there is independent evidence for such a causeway, whose

southern terminal was probably some 1km to the west of the barrows plotted from air photography, and it will be discussed in its place below.

Wilkinson (1986–7, 55) noted that the sand islands in the river course would have been attractive to settlement from as early as the Mesolithic period. The closest known occupation site in the near vicinity of Lincoln, not just of the Bronze Age, but of the whole prehistoric period up to the late Iron Age, may have been between Lincoln and Washingborough (5km east – Fig. 5.1). Here a pool had formed during the course of the inundations to which the Witham valley was subjected in the late Bronze Age, and into this pool, according to the excavators, was washed a mixed assemblage of animal bones, pottery, worked and unworked wood and a single harness fitting (Coles et al. 1979). The excavators concluded that the pottery, in particular, should indicate that there was a settle-ment of late bronze-age date, not far up-stream, which could have been the origin of this material. More recently, finds of pottery of similar date, made during field-walking somewhat further to the east, have been interpreted in the same way and have been used to add further scale to this proposed settlement (Elsdon 1994).

Evidence for bronze-age settlement on the limestone heath land around the later city is more equivocal. The significance of the late bronze-age hoard of palstaves, axes and spearheads found to the north, in Nettleham parish, in 1860 (Davey 1973, nos. 263–71) is unclear.

Although such finds have often been given utilitarian explanations, in the context of contemporary bronze-working markets, they are increasingly seen as votive offerings (Bradley 1998, passim, esp. 97–154; Pryor 2001b) and may bear no relationship to settlement patterns at all. Within Bradley’s analysis, the Nettleham hoard looks most like a ‘dry land’ offering of a type which, although common in the early and middle Bronze Ages, was being superseded by votive offerings of swords made in rivers by the date of the artefacts it contains.

Although we have relatively little to say about the city area in earlier periods, from the late Bronze Age onwards (from perhaps c.1000 – c.700BC), the status of the river valley at Lincoln as a place of great significance is more clearly revealed. Furthermore it seems certain that it owed that prominence to its topography. The narrowest point of the Witham valley does not lie where the Roman road would later cross the river (in the Wigford suburb), but about 1km to the east, in the vicinity of the modern Stamp End lock and further east still, where the gravel terraces come down close to the river (Figs. 4.4 and 5.2). We now know from work on the early Roman period (Steane et al. 2001, 308–11) that the Wigford causeway across the valley floor was partly man-made and, before its existence, the narrowing of the valley in the vicinity of Stamp End would have made a more obvious crossing point. It has been precisely here, in the stretch Fig. 5.3. Bronze-age collared urn (City and County Museum

– cat. 295.16) found ‘in a sandpit’ in 1914 in Canwick parish – perhaps on the site of the City Council’s new refuse destructor, which was under construction in that year. This site was considerably further west than the other known barrows at Canwick and would be close to the southern terminal of the proposed early causeway at Stamp End. Conceivably, then, it could represent an offering at the causeway rather than a barrow as such (photo and copyright, Lincolnshire County Council, Lincolnshire Museums Service).

of river below the Stamp End lock, that more than 24 finds of high quality metalwork have been made (Davey 1971; 1973; White 1979a; 1979b; 1979c; Stocker and Everson 2003). Of these artefacts, 20 are of late bronze-age and iron-age date (Fig. 5.5). The greatest number of finds was recovered in the summer of 1826 when the lock at Stamp End was being reconstructed to allow it to take passenger steamers. Five of the

bronze-age finds are swords, the remainder axes and spearheads, but as a group they form part of an easily recognisable pattern of votive ‘offerings’ similar to those made at the other known and presumed cause-ways in the central part of the Witham valley and in similar contexts elsewhere (Fitzpatrick 1984; Bradley 1998).

The distribution of later bronze-age metalwork in Fig. 5.4. Known and suspected barrows in the valley floor east of Lincoln, based on data from the NMP and the Lincolnshire SMR (drawn by Dave Watt, copyright English Heritage).

Lincolnshire as a whole is notable and most of it comes from the Witham between Lincoln and Tattershall. The finds from Stamp End represent only a small per-centage of the total of at least 150 metalwork finds made between Lincoln and Tattershall in the last 200 years (Davey 1971; 1973; May 1976, 114–9; White 1979a;

1979b; 1979c). In 1981 Naomi Field undertook im-portant excavations close to the find-site of some of the richest of these discoveries, at Fiskerton (5km east) (Field nd.; 1986; Field and Parker Pearson 2003) (Fig.

5.6). These investigations clearly demonstrated both that the finds were votive in intention, and that they were associated with an iron-age timber causeway, much like the late bronze-age example excavated at Flag Fen near Peterborough by Francis Pryor (1991, 112–20; 2001a). The recent discovery of log-boats and further metal objects near to the earlier Fiskerton site was not therefore completely unexpected, while a currency bar from the same site – probably of the 1st century BC in date – extends the use of the site right to the end of the Iron Age.

A more recent study (Stocker and Everson 2003) has demonstrated that the pattern of structures and finds most clearly seen at Fiskerton is probably also present at all of the nine medieval causeways in the Witham valley and its tributaries between Lincoln and Tattershall. The sequence of monuments at these locations mostly starts with a barrow cemetery of early or middle bronze-age date, which was frequently buried beneath the advancing peat, as water levels in the Witham valley rose during the late Bronze Age.

During this inundation stage it seems likely that a series of causeways was laid out across the developing fen. Although Fiskerton is the only causeway to have

been found through excavation, the pattern of bronze-age, iron-age and later finds at each of the other eight medieval or earlier causeway sites suggests that similar structures may have been laid out at these locations also. At Stamp End, also the site of a documented medieval causeway (p. 235 below), the same pattern of bronze- and iron-age votive depo-sitions occurs – so we may confidently predict that there will have been a timber causeway structure here from the late Bronze Age into the Roman period and later. Such longevity seems to be confirmed by the finding, not just of late bronze-age metalwork in the vicinity of the putative causeway but also six items of iron-age date, including, probably, the famous With-am Shield (Fig. 5.7) (Stocker and Everson 2003).

It is unlikely that any of the Witham causeways were continuous across the main channel of the river itself, as the power of the main stream in flood would probably make such an arrangement impractical.

Nevertheless, the causeways may have extended from the dry land (i.e. from above the 5m contour) across the valley floor right up to the sides of the main stream. At the other causeways it is thought that the terminals of the causeways against the main channel of the river may have served as the mooring points for ferries – and we can guess that such an arrange-ment existed at Stamp End as well.

The work of the Fenland Survey (Lane et al. 1993;

Hall and Coles 1994; Waller 1994) has followed Simmons’ research (1979; 1980; 1985) on the iron-age coastline, which at high tide lay considerably inland of its present line. This implies that, as the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age, the putative ‘causeway’ at Stamp End will have formed a further barrier in the Fig. 5.5. a) ‘Antennae-hilted’ sword of late bronze-age date found in the reach below Stamp End in 1826 and now in the museum of His Grace the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland (cat. 235) (photo and copyright, Lincolnshire County Council, Lincolnshire Museums Service). b) Iron sword of the 2nd century BC with scabbard decorated in bronze relief. It was also found in 1826 in the reach below Stamp End and is now in the museum of His Grace the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland (cat. 276) (photo and copyright, Lincolnshire County Council, Lincolnshire Museums Service).

b)

a)

Fig. 5.6. The iron-age ‘causeway’ excavated by N Field south-east of Fiskerton church in 1981. This view of the excavations looks east, with the North Delph bank and River Witham to the right (photo and copyright, N. Field & Lindsey Archaeological Services).

Fig. 5.7 (right). The ‘Witham Shield’. This magnificent object was dredged from the Witham in August 1826 (White 1979a, 4). The shield is first recorded in the ownership of Rev H Waldo-Sibthorpe (Meyrick 1831, 97). Its find-site is sometimes given as Washingborough parish, although the precise location of the find was not recorded. However, in August 1826, major works were undertaken in the river at, and immediately downstream of, the Stamp End lock. This work was sponsored by the Witham Navigation Company, in which the Sibthorpe family were both major shareholders and riparian owners (Hill 1974, 100, 113, etc.). Humphrey Sibthorpe was indeed rector of Washingborough at the time, but his ‘property’, near to which Meyrick said the find was made, was in Canwick parish (not Washingborough) and the Sibthorpes owned the land south of Stamp End – where the work in 1826 was being done (Mills, Mills and Trott 2001) (photo and copyright, The British Museum).

flow of the Witham, and the flat basin at the junction of the rivers Witham and Till (always prone to flooding) will have become more and more a landscape of pools and meres in the centre of an extensive wetland.

Research into the nature of the early Brayford by Mr R Carey (unpublished) seems to indicate that the Till flowed along the southern side of the Pool – then considerably larger than now – up to its junction with the Witham. More recent research based on analysis of boreholes in the area of the developing Lincoln University campus has identified the former course of the Till as it entered Brayford Pool to the south of the present Fossdyke (Rackham 1999). Based partly on work by the Soil Survey and on aerial photographs, Wilkinson explained the wider geographical

back-ground of these features by identifying an estuarine creek system of late prehistoric date with only oc-casional tidal influence (1986–7), and his conclusions have informed Figs. 4.2 and 4.4. Numerous studies have suggested that such ‘liminal’ landscapes of pools and meres provided the ideal locations for the deposi-tion of metalwork. Such environments were frequently thought to be interfaces between the gods and man, portals at which communication between the natural and the super-natural became possible. It is easy to see, then, that the existence of an extensive area of water, and pools, and containing some sand-islands, gave a very special character to the site of what was to become Lincoln.

Environmental sampling of the buried peats on the south side of the existing Pool, undertaken in 1994 in connection with the development of the first phase of the University, has produced more concrete infor-mation on the early landscape (Fig. 5.8). Although detailed study of the samples has not yet been possible,

Environmental sampling of the buried peats on the south side of the existing Pool, undertaken in 1994 in connection with the development of the first phase of the University, has produced more concrete infor-mation on the early landscape (Fig. 5.8). Although detailed study of the samples has not yet been possible,