FOLLOWING a well attended AGM, Thorverton and District History Society members enjoyed a detailed explanation and discussion of the significant prehistoric sites in our immediate geographical area and the results and analysis of the Community Archaeological Project that was supported by so many from the village over the two weeks of the dig.

The Zoom talk, titled "Pre-History in the Exe Valley - The Thorverton Community Archaeology Project 2019" was by Paul Rainbird from AC Archaeology.

A proposal to extend the church graveyard and lithic scatters documented from field walking in the area, prompted the initial investigations as prehistoric finds were likely.

Three trenches subsequently found further pieces of worked flint and a small amount of middle Neolithic "Peterborough ware" and meant further excavations were required.

The success of local interest and funding resulted in a dig in two areas, in established areas of interest from geophysical mapping and from historic tithe map boundaries.

The results and the process have already been recorded for “Focus” in the December 2020 edition. Nevertheless, both the content and the detail of this talk from Paul were fascinating to hear once more.

What was even more interesting was to follow the process of deduction and use of pre-existing evidence and sites to provide evidential support for the final conclusions.

In the case of Area 2 which seemed to be a circular ditch with possible pits and post holes central to the circular ditch feature initially indicated that it could be possibly a monumental structure in the form of a henge or barrow.

However, paleo-environmental samples of pottery identified at the site were mid Neolithic or Bronze Age, while further samples of wheat grains and spelt (only introduced into Britain in the mid Bronze Age) narrowed down the dating to approximately 1000BCE or the late Bronze Age.

Archaeologists were able to correspond our site to known ringwork, typical of southeast England, as a small settlement, but nonetheless special in its landscape, while the range of dated evidence allowed the possibility of there being two phases of roundhouse on the site.

The discovery just being pipped to the post as the first roundhouse discovered in Devon, by the Hill Barton site!

Overall the finds allowed firm conclusions to be made that there was a Middle Neolithic settlement on the site and a curious cursus type enclosure similar to the area well established near Stonehenge, an early Bronze Age "beaker" settlement and also a late Bronze Age settlement.

For those who wish to follow up these conclusions they will be published in the Devon Archaeological Society proceedings by Henrietta Quinnell.

This was a fascinating talk about the process of discovery and conclusions about the past on our own doorstep and neatly precedes some of our anticipated talks for the coming year.

Our earliest being on February 25 by Derek Gore about Vikings in the West Country and then on March 26 we welcome Olaf Bayer to speak on the Neolithic History of Thorverton.

Ann Marshall