2025/04/01 by AOC Archaeology Group, Jessica Taylor, Catherine Langdon +2 · 1 voice
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
paper · pdf · doi:10.11141/ia.69.6
openalex publication_date 2025/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/04/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
In March 2022, two geoarchaeological boreholes were drilled within the Avon Valley at the site of Jubilee Gardens, Ringwood, Hampshire. The works were commissioned from Connect Archaeology by VolkerFitzpatrick on behalf of their client, National Highways, as part of the A31 road widening and junction improvement works. One sequence was selected for palaeoenvironmental analysis and radiocarbon dating, aiming to provide evidence for landscape development in an area where such records are sparse. The results highlight two temporally removed phases of deposition. The early Neolithic base of the sequence illustrates the presence of alder carr and herbaceous wetland in the lower valley, with the higher land home to open grassland with copses of primarily hazel. Beyond the scheme footprint, Neolithic long barrows and Bronze Age barrow cemeteries were constructed among the higher grasslands, standing as prominent monuments overlooking the floodplain. It is possible that changing climate of the 2.8 ka event, bringing colder and wetter conditions, may have pushed people from the region as the rivers grew more powerful and eroded the ground around them. Such an event may explain the decline in regional human activity during the Iron Age period, as well as an absence of the channel's depositional sequence. By the early medieval period, conditions returned to deposition within the river channel, with herbaceous wetlands spreading through the lower valley, bringing a decline in alder carr, as agricultural field systems became prominent across the upper valley. Evidence for land reclamation and flood alleviation is shown throughout the 20th century as Ringwood grew.