Late Iron Age/Romano-British Transition Pastoral Activity in the Western Environs of York: Archaeological investigations at the A1237/B1224, Wetherby Road Roundabout, York

The recovery of a small lithic assemblage from excavations during improvements to the A1237/B1224, Wetherby Road roundabout, York, demonstrate that the area was being exploited, at least in a limited way, as early as the Neolithic. The earliest feature was defined as such by its stratigraphic relationship with a pit radiocarbon dated to the Bronze Age, and from which a rubber-stone for a saddle quern was recovered. Activity at the site had intensified by the Late Iron Age, at which time a pastoral landscape had become established with open ground or grassland subdivided by ditched enclosures and hedgerows. It has been possible to detail local conditions from a suite of environmental evidence captured in a series of large waterlogged pits, interpreted as watering holes for livestock. The continued exploitation of a spring accessed by these features is evident from maintenance of the watering holes during the transition to the Romano-British period. However, by the mid-Roman period the watering holes had silted up and fallen out of use.