Wellington Quarry, Herefordshire (1986-96) - Robin Jackson

This volume presents the results of the first 10 years of
archaeological investigation at Wellington Quarry, Herefordshire.
During this time a regionally unique archaeological and
palaeoenvironmental sequence was recorded covering nearly 8000
years of interrelated human activity and landscape change in the
Lower Lugg Valley. Starting with use by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the
heavily wooded floodplain witnessed periods of sporadic
occupation and activity throughout early prehistory. A mid 4th
millennium BC pit group provided a detailed insight into a wide
range of seasonally based activities, while later funerary
deposits included a wealthy Beaker burial. From the start of the
2nd millennium BC, an increasingly open and cleared landscape
existed beyond the floodplain, on which activity was evidenced by
occasional finds from former watercourses. Ritual deposition of human remains and artefacts in the
later prehistoric period included a rare Iron Age double
inhumation, though by this time a more settled and farmed
landscape had emerged. By the 2nd century AD, a streamside
settlement had been established. Expansion and intensification of
this settlement led to the construction, by the 4th century, of
one or more well-appointed stone buildings indicating that at
least some of the inhabitants lived a highly Romanised lifestyle,
rare on rural sites in this region.The settlement was abandoned by the late 4th to early 5th
century but, until at least the 12th to 14th centuries, arable
cultivation continued. During the post-medieval period there was
a shift towards an enclosed landscape of pasture and meadow, a
pattern maintained until the onset of mineral extraction in the
1980s.