RESEARCH AT THRUPP, ABINGDON; 1970 - PRESENT

Thrupp has proven to be one of the richest locations in our district for archaeological remains and AAAHS diggers have been investigating the area since the society was first formed in 1968. In common with a number of local sites this one has been archaeologically productive because of the intensity of gravel extraction, which has exposed the remains, coupled with the fact that as an agricultural and fishing community lying outside of Abingdon it never suffered from the concerted and frequent damage (particularly during and since Medieval times) that the towns archaeological remains have experienced.

1: Thrupp area plan

Click on any image for larger version

However, the removal of soils overlying gravels and the subsequent extraction of the gravels themselves since the 1950’s has led to the complete destruction of many important archaeological sites and this process is set continue until all commercially viable gravels have been extracted along the Thames floodplain. Whereas in the past abandoned gravel pits at Thrupp were ‘left-to-nature’, with considerable amenity value, recently they are filled with pulverised fly-ash (PFA) from Didcot Power Station. There is also a proposal to construct a ‘relief’ road through Thrupp that will cross the Thames in the vicinity of the existing railway bridge.

2: AAAHS digging at Thrupp in 1979

THE EARLIEST HUMAN PRESENCE AT THRUPP

Evidence of the earliest human occupiers of Thrupp has come from beneath the gravels and consists of a dozen flint and quartzite handaxes and flakes that are in the region of 350,000 years old. These ‘Middle Palaeolithic’ artefacts are considerably older than the gravels that buried them and are likely to have been redeposited from very much older gravel deposits currently located a short distance to the north. In addition, two very much rarer artefacts attributable to some of the last northern European Neanderthals (a bout coupé handaxe and a disc-core) were recovered by quarry workers along with a small number of 40,000-year-old woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and reindeer teeth and bones. The ages of the gravel deposits at Thrupp does not follow the generally recognised sequence for the Upper Thames Valley. In certain areas the c. 37,000-year-old floodplain gravels that ought to be present are absent. ‘Uranium Series’ dates obtained by Ed Rhodes of Oxford’s ‘Radiocarbon’ dating facility show much younger or older deposits replacing them in some areas. The presence of distinctly different mammal faunas also supports this geological observation. A characteristic ‘mammoth-steppe’ (‘Coygan’) community dating to around 40,000 years before present lies beneath the easterly gravels nearest to the Oxford-Didcot railway line and a 90,000-76,000 year-old (‘Banwell’) fauna, lacking woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and horse, and instead including bison, reindeer, bear, wolf and arctic fox lies beneath the westerly gravels in the Barton Lane quarry alongside the ‘Sustrans’ cycle trackway (only 0.5 km apart).

3: An 'archaic' Palaeolithic handaxe from Thrupp.

The older ‘Banwell’ fauna lived during a time when there were a few spruce, birch and pine trees in a generally parkland-like habitat that experienced a warm to temperate climate. The 90,000-76,000 year old deposits containing the bones are very unusual because later gravel aggradation invariably destroyed them along most of the Upper Thames Valley. They are, in consequence, scientifically extremely important. In collaboration with Kate Scott and Christine Buckingham we have recovered several thousand superb condition bones in the Barton Lane quarry although as yet only a single in-situ human artefact has been found. The condition of the bones is such that most still possess clearly visible gnawing marks attributable to predators such as wolves, arctic foxes and bears.

4: Bison skull on 90,000 year old river channel surface

5: Ed Rhodes dating Thrupp Deposits

MESOLITHIC

The post-glacial period that began 10,000 years ago is referred to as the Mesolithic or middle-stone-age. It lasted for approximately 4,500 years. Our area has produced some notable individual or collections of stone artefacts dating from the middle to later part of this period but as yet no unquestionable ‘occupation’ sites have been identified. The list of finds from Thrupp is not excessive and includes a single ‘Thames-Pick’ (handed to Jeff Wallis by a member of the public), a small number of ‘microliths’ as well as some long-blades and long-blade cores from a flint scatter on the easternmost gravel island (NGR SU 525 872) that may date to this period. Slightly further afield the number and type of artefacts increases slightly (e.g. at Pumney Farm, Lower Farm, Radley and Otney), as does the amount of ‘occupation’ debris, but it appears that population density/occupation frequency was very low for a considerable period of time and, therefore, the archaeological ‘signature’ for the Mesolithic was not as pronounced as it was to become during the later Neolithic.

6: Mesolithic Thames Pick

NEOLITHIC

The gravel ‘islands’ in the Thrupp area were occupied around 5,000 years ago by the earliest Neolithic farmers and for the first time intensive and widespread occupation evidence, other than extensive flint scatters, can be recognised in the form of structures, pits and where tree clearance has occurred. Such settlements were centred on higher gravel terraces adjacent to a complex of gravel-bottomed river channels, which have long-since silted up (see below). Neolithic people would have lived in an area containing several medium to small gravel ‘islands’, surrounded by many active rivers and side channels, in an area which in many respects (and as indicated by the abundant environmental evidence) would have resembled a miniature version of the Norfolk Broads. Nowadays only a single river flows through Thrupp but evidence for the existence of many earlier ones has been found in the form of peat- and alluvium-filled linear channels containing well-preserved organic remains such as wood, bone, mostly aquatic snails (Table 1) and aquatic beetles such as (a nearly complete, female) Dytiscus marginalis.

TABLE 1: Mollusca recorded from Thrupp, Abingdon, 1997.

SPECIES	Upper, most recent Unit (3a)	Upper-middle Unit (3b)	Middle Unit (4a)	Lower-middle Unit (4b)	Lowest & oldest ‘peat’ unit (4c)
Valvata piscinalis		1
Bithynia tentaculata		43	8	1	62
Bithynia tentaculata (opercula)	1	36	42
Lymnaea truncatula		1
Lymnaea palustris		17	6		51
Lymnaea stagnalis		3	1		5
Lymnaea peregra		1			4
Planorbis planorbis		34	4		52
Planorbis carinatus					17
Anisus leucostoma		3	2		2
Gyraulus laevis		7	1
Planorbarius corneus		8	1		8
Ancyllus fluviatilis		3
Sphaerium corneum		1			6
Pisidium nitidum			3
Pisidium spp.			1
Succinea spp.		1
Vallonia pulchella		1
Total	1	124	61	1	207

Items such as leaf-shaped and transverse arrowheads and polished flint and greenstone axes were common surface finds from the modern ploughsoil from this period on the gravel ‘islands’ (Table 2). Over 6,000 struck flint tools and flakes were recovered by Bill Skellington and other members from just one area (NGR SU 525 872: what is now an enormous PFA pit) during the 1970’s and these constituted only a small fraction of the total. A few complete pottery vessels have also been recovered by AAAHS members, e.g., Oxoniensia, 1973, volume 38, pp., 384-385. An overview of the Neolithic archaeology of Thrupp is in preparation and long overdue.

7: Restored Beaker period vessel found at Thrupp in 1979

 

TABLE 2: Flints collected and identified by Bill Skellington from Thrupp during the 1970’s. Descriptions by finder.

The notes written at the time of collection refer to the finding in the same area of an additional 5,300 flint waste flakes. The core types were not differentiated. The majority of these artefacts now reside in Cornwall!

More recently our diggers have been investigating possible Neolithic (‘Beaker Period’) features on the northern edge of the Barton Lane gravel pit. The site consists of huge quantities of burned and fractured quartzite cobbles spread over and within a number of pits/depressions intruding/dug into the post-glacial (cryoturbated) silts and sands. That they were not burned in-situ is indicated by the presence within the burned material of unburned flint tools, pottery and animal bones. A number of interpretations have been suggested for the purpose of the burning based on the possible function of the heated quartzite cobbles that were apparently preferentially selected for their small size. Possibilities include the discarded residue from cooking pits, cremation fires or ‘primitive’ pottery kilns. We do have a lump of clay from within a pit that seems to have been discarded during the process of adding a fossil-shell temper to it (Neolithic pottery was shell-tempered). The small number of charred bones might also support an interpretation as a ‘kiln’ site. Remains of a possible wooden ‘jetty’ have also been uncovered nearby along with some superb flint artefacts (a polished flint axe reworked into a ‘chisel’, an enormous barbed and tanged arrowhead, a smaller example of the same and a huge flint core) and animal bones such as flint-sawn red deer antler fragments.

8: An exceptionally large 'Beaker' barbed and tanged arrowhead found at Thrupp in 2001

 

The site lies on the bank of what was, during the Neolithic period, an active branch of the Thames. This c. 40-50 metre-wide now ‘peat’ and alluvium filled channel was flowing as recently as the 15^th century (see below) but apparently no longer existed by the time of the publication of the John Rocque map in 1761.

9: Three views of a Neolithic polished flint axe or chisel

BRONZE AGE

During the Early to Middle Bronze Age period the main focus of occupation seems to have shifted northwards towards the Barrow Hills complex along the Radley Road. Our members assisted with the excavations there in 1984. In the Late Bronze Age/Middle-Iron Age period occupation intensity increased again at Thrupp. The most spectacular evidence from this time has been discovered beneath the ‘peats’ and alluvial clays that were machined from the surface of the Barton Lane gravel pit.

10: Overview of Thrupp Trackway 2 after excavation

In 1997 Tuckwell’s Ltd removed an unusually deep layer (up to 2.5 metres in places) of ‘peat’ and alluvium in order to gain access to the gravel. Perhaps the most interesting archaeological discoveries, but certainly the most unusual, were two, and probably a third (seen in section only), limestone and burned-quartzite cobble paved trackways. They were probably constructed during the Late-Bronze Age/Early-Iron Age (judging from the sand-tempered pottery and a perforated triangular loomweight:- radiocarbon dates are pending) across ‘Thrupp Water’ that, due to increasing rainfall, runoff and/or downstream channel impedance (perhaps caused by beavers), seems to have been increasingly acting as a barrier to free travel between the higher ground along what is now the Science Park and the gravel ‘island’ on the south side of ‘Thrupp Water’. A similar example was excavated by ‘Oxford Archaeology’ upstream at Cassington. The presence of a bronze spearhead beneath it indicates a Bronze-Age date.

11: Trackway 2 in section

The nearest source for the limestone used as the trackway surface is located at the southern end of Kennington Village 3 km away although this material was originally washed down from Bagley Wood. Presumably the stone was transported in boats although an overland route (the extension of Barton Lane that respects the higher gravel terrace between lower Radley and Abingdon) cannot be discounted. The trackways were built up in a similar manner to a Roman road, even to the extent of having an apparent ‘kerb’ and a cambered surface. The limestone blocks and quartzite cobbles were placed on the top of a wooden structure (either brushwood foundations or even a beaver dam judging by the curvature of the westernmost example) which itself was placed across a layer of river deposited alluvial clays. At some point in time this trackway appears to have been cut through in a few places in order to facilitate free drainage through it. Eventually the trackways were abandoned; channel velocity decreased significantly (perhaps because of the presence of the trackways themselves) resulting in the formation of extensive ‘peat’ deposits that eventually buried them. Large numbers of the bones of domesticated and wild animal species were deposited beneath the same ‘peaty’ layer that buried the trackway and there was a marked reduction in bone density away from them.

12: Poleaxed cattle skull (top view) from Trackway 2

Animal remains thrown into the watercourse, presumably by the Late-Bronze Age/Middle-Iron Age trackway builders, include cattle, horse, sheep/goat, pig, wild boar, badger, red deer, roe deer (both naturally shed antlers), a duck and crane (the latter, a rare find, kindly identified by Joanne H. Cooper of the Natural History Museum, London). Human skull and limb bones were also recovered. There was a high concentration of naturally shed red deer antlers in a small area surrounding the westernmost trackway. Many post-cranial bones exhibit butchery marks, a cattle skull shows clearly where the animal was ‘pole-axed’ and a human humerus appears to have been gnawed by a dog.

13: Human arm bone (humerus) from the surface of Trackway 2

14: Iron Age Barrel Jar

The AAAHS is grateful to Norman Ward and Colin Savage of Tuckwell’s Ltd for allowing access to the site and for giving us time to excavate the archaeology that has been revealed.

IRON AGE

The area lying next to the Oxford-London railway line was excavated by the society between 1970-1984 and is reported in Oxoniensia, (1999), volume 54, pp., 117-152. In summary, a large number of pits, ditches and roundhouse sites were discovered dating between the Early- and Late-Iron Ages along with pottery and ditches of Roman date.

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

This seemingly unbroken sequence of human occupation imperceptibly merges into the Romano-British period after which there is no firm evidence for in-situ settlement until the 10-11^th century: the ‘lost’ Medieval Village of Thrupp at the bottom of Barton Lane (once at least 18 households but now comprising only two). The village traded fish and other produce with Abingdon Abbey for many centuries. An extensive area of medieval ridge-and-furrow farmland existed until the 1970’s south of the existing houses and where the PFA pit now lies (the same area as the flint scatter, NGR SU 525 959).

15: Thrupp Cottages 10th-11th Century Medieval 'hovel' being excavated in 2002

16: Cobblestone foundations of the 10th-11th Century Medieval 'hovel'

With the kind permission of Andy and Karen Durkin the garden of Thrupp Cottage was investigated by the society between 2001-2002. The earliest evidence, in the form of buildings, was for a ‘hovel’-like early-Medieval structure that used, selected, very large quartzite cobble stones for its foundations and which, judging by the ceramics, probably dates to the 10-11^th century. A substantial and later stone building (perhaps of 13^th-14^th century date) lies underneath Thrupp Cottage and its garden. A dense scatter of 10^th-11^th century pottery was also recovered spreading 150 metres to the east, extending beyond the existing buildings and into farmland to the southwest (where we excavated in 1998; NGR SU 517 972). By the 14^th century Thrupp ‘Village’ like many others in this period (e.g. Seacourt 13 km to the north) seems to have suffered a major decline, apparently being severely affected by the black-death (1348-1349) until falling into disuse as a functioning semi-autonomous farming and fishing community around the time of the dissolution of the monasteries and the (perhaps consequent) silting up of all but one (i.e., the modern channel) of the series of water courses that had been in existence for thousands of years previously.

The largest, now extinct, watercourse was ‘Thrupp Water’ which was approximately 40 metres wide and which flowed from east to west along the southern edge of what was until recently the Abingdon branch railway line, merging with the modern channel near Abingdon weirs. Part of this long-forgotten watercourse is illustrated on the 15^th Century Monk’s and Blacknall maps, which were long thought of as representational rather than as being, we now realise, surprisingly accurate and probably painted by person/s familiar with the area.

Some rebuilding of the two remaining structures at Thrupp occurred sporadically until the present but for all intents and purposes the village and community of Thrupp had been effectively forgotten until our historians and archaeologists began to investigate the site.

17: Location of 'Thrupp Water' and stone-paved trackways (white bars). Aerial photograph taken above the Barton Fields Nature Reserve, looking east