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Prehistoric and other discoveries in the Thames Valley and ßÙßÇÂþ»­ Greensand

The excavations at sites near Bedfont, Chertsey and Nutfield all produced Late Upper Palaeolithic and/or Mesolithic flintwork, with altleftthe substantial quantity at Nutfield suggesting a 'persistent place' in the local landscape. Bedfont had an Early Neolithic pit and Late Neolithic features were identified at all three sites, with Nutfield producing a rare pit with Beaker ceramics.

These features suggest the occasional presence of essentially mobile communities, but in the Middle-Late Bronze Age each site shows the imposition of an ordered landscape. At Bedfont it is clearly a co-axial field system with trackways, and waterholes, but, interestingly the latter are lacking in at Nutfield, where the field system is the first confidently identified on the ßÙßÇÂþ»­ Greensand. Domestic activity is indicated at all sites but at Chertsey a unique rectilinear enclosure, with a small square enclosure within, may be for ritual or sacred use.

Only Nutfield had Iron Age settlement, with roundhouses set within a substantial enclosure ditch. Its use may have extended into the earliest Romano-British period, when at Bedfont trackways were added to a still functioning Bronze Age field system and at Chertsey new fields were laid out.

Only Chertsey produced a few Saxon sherds, in the same area as a medieval moat, while at Nutfield there is evidence of medieval assarting and a pillow mound (rabbit warren).

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