Chemring Countermeasures, High Post, Salisbury

In 2008-9 a programme of archaeological mitigation works was undertaken on the site of an Iron Age hilltop enclosure on the southern margins of Salisbury Plain at High Post, 6 km north of Salisbury, Wiltshire. The preliminary stages of work, comprising geophysical survey (69540) and evaluation (69541), revealed parts of two adjacent ditched enclosures. The northern part of the southern enclosure was subject to excavation (69543), and a watching brief (69545-6) during ground clearance. The excavation revealed that the enclosure was bounded by a deep V-shaped ditch. Another, significant feature revealed was a large spread of mostly articulated animal bone, deriving from a minimum of 25 cattle, five sheep, a pig and a horse. This unique deposit is interpreted as a feasting and/or foundation deposit associated with the construction of the enclosure's defences. The Iron Age occupation of the enclosure was represented by three roundhouses, and numerous storage pits and post-holes, indicative of a settled farming and trading community. The enclosure was subsequently abandoned during the Middle Iron Age. An unusual feature inside the enclosure was an oval gully, possibly some form of shrine, with two pits at its southern end containing a collection of rare, placed objects - including in one pit an iron saw and a steelyard balance. In addition, an inhumation burial was made on the edge of the former enclosure, the grave cutting through the remnant bank down to the Iron Age animal bone spread. The other significant Romano-British feature was a well-preserved corn drying oven built into the hollow of the silted up Iron Age ditch. Following the abandonment of the oven, a human skull was placed in the back of its T-shaped flue. The digital archive consists of site and post excavation analysis database records, site survey and post-excavation phasing AutoCAD drawings and site and post-excavation digital photographic records. The paper archive is deposited with Salisbury Museum under the Accession code: 2018.127. The project is also published (69544) as a Wessex Archaeology occasional paper; An Iron Age Enclosure and Romano-British Features at High Post, near Salisbury, Andrew B. Powell et al, 2011. (ISBN 978-1-874350-57-6)