Site and Post-Excavation Data from an Excavation at Lay Wood, Devizes, Wiltshire 2016

This collection comprises images, site records, CAD plans, and tabular post-excavation datasets from an excavation undertaken by Oxford Archaeology in 2016 at Lay Wood, Devizes, Wiltshire.

Initially, three roughly square areas were opened in the south-western field to investigate the early Roman activity. Two measured 1,796m2 and the third 2,500 m2. It was immediately apparent that significant archaeological remains were present in all three of the trenches, and understanding of each area in isolation was going to be difficult. The Local Planning Authority Archaeologist invoked a contingency provision for the excavation of an extra 10,000m2, which effectively joined the three trenches to form a single excavation area. It was accepted that expansion of the extent of excavation would necessarily result in a reduction in the scale of sampling of individual features and deposits.

A fourth trench covering 3,789m2 was opened adjacent to the west side of the area containing the villa building which was preserved in situ in the eastern part of the site. This trench was intended to investigate anomalies highlighted by geophysical survey which may have been associated with the villa, and to locate any prehistoric features, since finds of this date were recovered in the area during the evaluation.

Topsoil and subsoil layers were stripped by mechanical excavator to the first significant archaeological horizon and the resulting spoil was scanned for artefactual remains, though no metal-detector was used. Excavation of archaeological features followed standard Oxford Archaeology fieldwork methodology guidelines.

Ten per cent of each non-structural linear feature including ditch terminals and intersections was excavated, while 50 per cent of each non-structural, discrete feature, such as pits and postholes, was excavated. Cremation burial deposits were excavated as bulk samples and processed as per the methods detailed in the human bone report Excavation of an area of about 2ha in advance of housing development revealed a zone of intensive occupation dating from about the middle of the 1st century AD to the end of the 2nd century AD, with prehistoric activity indicated by redeposited flintwork. The Roman features were primarily field boundaries and associated trackways and enclosures, and included a probable circular building and cremation burials. The sequence of development was complex and many features had been repeatedly redug. The early Roman occupation lay about 400m from a probable Roman villa building which was partly examined during an evaluation of the wider site and subsequently preserved in situ.