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had moved to Terrington, just north of the fine medieval church. On the face of it, this might suggest that the life of the Middle Saxon farming settlement was short and sharp. The scatter was large, but it was difficult to say any more about it without digging some selective holes. This happened a few years later, when some of the most important sites revealed in the Fenland Survey were given a closer look.³⁴

      It would now seem that Hay Green was not alone. The Fenland Survey revealed six other comparable sites that were evenly spaced out across the Marshland silts. This arrangement strongly suggested that these farms or settlements were part of a Middle Saxon planned development. It was also suggested, in line with what we know happened somewhat later, that the individual farms or settlements could have been linked to upland estates on the higher ground of ‘mainland’ Norfolk, to the east.

      Like all good surveys, the ‘field-walking’ was more than just a pot-pick-up.* Metal detectors were also used, but to everyone’s surprise they failed to find significant quantities of coins (sceattas) or any other metalwork. This was most peculiar, given the huge quantities of quite high-quality pottery. The surface survey also revealed a number of animal bones, many of which had been burnt. It was all rather mysterious. Everyone was agreed: trenches must be dug.

      They decided to excavate at Hay Green and two other sites of the remaining six. All three sites produced a number of archaeological features, which was a relief to the excavators, who had feared that most would have been destroyed by modern farming. Big ditches had been dug along the roddon, and at Hay Green these ended in a series of large pits which were filled with quantities of animal bone and debris. Much of the animal bone showed obvious signs of butchery (butchery marks are now well-studied in archaeology), and it was clear that this had happened in situ. It therefore appears that meat was being exported from the site as joints or sides, rather than ‘on the hoof’.

      So far no clear evidence for settlement has been found, but this probably reflects the fact that larger, ‘open area’ excavation was not possible. The excavators believe it is likely that the six sites were only occupied in the summer months, when the grazing was at its best and the risk of flooding was minimal. So this livestock enterprise represents the planned exploitation of an underused natural resource at a time when conventional history might have us believe that the economy was still largely underdeveloped. It shows not only that these farmers had the wealth to buy in quantities of pottery, but that their products could be distributed efficiently to markets that were sufficiently rich to justify such a large-scale enterprise. The more we look at the Middle Saxon period in southern Britain, the more we realise that it was about far, far more than mere subsistence farming.

      Ben Palmer is of the opinion that some rural sites may have had access to traded goods because of their location close to one or more roads or rivers. Laying aside the fact that the same can be said for most settlements, he points to rural sites such as Lake End Road near Maidenhead which do not seem to have anything special to offer, but which contain traded goods. This site lies close to the Thames, and has produced imported pottery, lava quernstones and Ipswich Ware from filled-in pits. So far, and despite extensive excavation, there is no clear evidence for metalwork or for permanent settlement. Whoever frequented this rather enigmatic site could also ‘tap in’ to passing trade. That is the theory. Palmer also suggests a nearby Thames-side site at Yarnton in Oxfordshire as a place that benefited from the passing trade along the river. But in this particular case I think it was rather more than that.

      I first came across Gill Hey’s complex multi-period project at Yarnton when I found my wife Maisie, a specialist in ancient woodworking, standing at the kitchen sink examining a waterlogged Bronze Age notched-log ladder. She had collected it the week before from the store at the Oxford Archaeological Unit, and was working indoors because it was bitterly cold in our barn, where she normally did such things. The ladder had been excavated by Gill Hey at Yarnton, which had also revealed a large Iron Age community, Roman settlement, Early Saxon and now Middle and Late Saxon occupation. Most of these important sites were later destroyed, either by gravel quarries or road schemes.

      Maisie had known Gill as a student when Gill was doing research into Peruvian pottery, of all things. Subsequently she quit South America for the Thames Valley and began her remarkable project at Yarnton, which I first mentioned in Seahenge, my autobiographical book on Bronze Age religion.³⁵ Yarnton is that rare thing, a large-scale excavation which also happens to be a thoroughgoing landscape project.

      Gill recently published her report on the Saxon period at Yarnton.³⁶ Yarnton lies on the very edge of the gravel terrace, on land that would have been just outside the limit of the river’s winter floodplain. This location ‘at the edge’, as it were, was deliberately chosen both in the Bronze and Iron Ages, as in Saxon and medieval times. The Thames floodplain is dressed with a thin layer of flood clay, known as alluvium, every time the river is in spate. This material is very fine, and is rich in natural fertilisers. As a result the grass gets away to a very good start in the spring, and gives young lambs and calves what farmers refer to as ‘a good bite’. In the past, before we learned how to ignore traditional ways of doing things, this land was never ploughed. Today it is, and surprise, surprise, the soil washes away and clogs up streams and drainage dykes.

      Good arable land was to be found on the light, well-drained gravel soils around the villages that clustered at the edge of the floodplain, and up the gentle slopes of the valley sides to the north of them. Beyond this arable belt was another landscape of rough pasture, woodland and scrub. This was where most of the building material for houses and fences was grown. It was also a good ‘emergency reserve’ of fodder in wintertime and in very dry summers. Most grazing animals are quite happy to browse (in other words to eat the leaves of trees and shrubs) if grazing is running short – in fact my sheep prefer browsing the young shoots of hawthorn hedges around the fields to the rich Fenland grass at their feet. So Yarnton and the villages around were carefully positioned not just to be safe from flooding, but to exploit their natural surroundings as efficiently as possible.

      Yarnton has produced huge quantities of Iron Age and Roman pottery. I can remember being in the finds shed surrounded by trays and trays of pottery stacked up to dry. This is what one would expect of an Iron Age site in the Thames Valley. But archaeology isn’t always predictable. As a general rule of thumb, in areas where pottery is common in the Iron Age, it remains popular in post-Roman times. The converse also applies, so in places like the west Midlands around Cirencester, the Iron Age is almost aceramic – presumably people used basketry and wooden bowls instead – then the usual types of semi-mass-produced Romano-British pottery appear in the Roman period. At the close of the Roman period people revert to their old ways and pottery vanishes from the scene. But at Yarnton, despite the richness of its Iron Age pottery, post-Roman sherds are rare. This is particularly odd given the size and seeming prosperity of the Saxon settlements. These were not pokey, subsistence-style farmsteads clinging onto a blasted hillside somewhere in the mountains, but a thriving and vigorous set of expanding communities in the heart of the pastoral lushness that is the Thames Valley. So what was going on?

      Yarnton and other sites around it revealed Early Middle and Late Saxon settlements, yet the total number of pottery fragments found there was just 117, weighing a fraction more than two packets of sugar (actually 2.192 kg). I would have expected something more like a quarter of a tonne, comprising anything from 10–50,000 sherds. We must assume that there isn’t a simple physical reason for the rarity of potsherds, like very acid ground water, which can dissolve shell and other calcareous components of the pottery. So the answer has to be cultural. For some reason the people living in Saxon Yarnton didn’t make or use much pottery. To an archaeologist, and probably only to an archaeologist, that might seem odd. But it isn’t. In fact the decision not to use pottery is perfectly rational, if unusual, because good containers can be made from wood or basketry, and of course birch bark, which we happen to know was used in the Thames Valley in prehistoric times. These organic containers will only survive in waterlogged conditions, where the air needed for fungi and bacteria to break down organic materials is absent. Such containers are durable,

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