Description

The character of the Romano-British rural economy in Cambridgeshire has been illuminated by the Priors Gate excavation at Eaton Socon, near St. Neots. The sequence of roundhouses, enclosures, watering holes and a droveway, spanning much of the Roman period, reflects the development, at its most basic and local level, of the Roman agrarian landscape. Unlike the county’s Roman villas and other higher status rural settlements, which have been well represented in previous excavations, the evidence from this site – the features, the finds and the environmental remains – reflects the relatively low status of the farming population. The people who lived on or near the site were the people who actually cultivated the land, reared and tended to the livestock, and in time supplied the food to more distant, less rural settlements and towns. Their basic lifestyle afforded them a few luxuries – reflected in the small quantity of imported pottery and glass, the few coins and the single brooch – but little visible wealth.

A report on the excavation, by Catriona Gibson, was published in 2005 in the Proceedings of the Cambridgeshire Antiquarian Society, vol. XCIV, pp. 21-38. A copy of that report can be downloaded from:
http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects...

This is one of the specialist finds and environmental reports from the excavation:

Pottery, by Rachael Seager Smith. The pottery from the site is quantified, and its forms, fabrics and dating discussed in relation to other assemblages in the region. Although predominantly utilitarian in character, the assemblage included some British and imported finewares and samian.