Dr Alex Lang
University of Nottingham

Banjo enclosures are a wholly Iron Age phenomenon in British archaeology. These relatively small, enclosed sites are often clustered across upland landscapes, which have sometimes been considered as hinterland settlement regions for the period. Recent investigations and a consolidation of research has actually shown these sites to be complex sites, serving a multiplicity of functions throughout the Middle and Late Iron Ages in central southern Britain. The aim of this paper is to outline some of this research and talk through our understanding of these sites. It will focus in particular on those found in the eastern Cotswolds of north Oxfordshire; where there is the densest cluster of banjo enclosures in the country. With many only discovered through aerial survey in the 1990s, little excavation has taken place and therefore narratives have been based on the evidence from the better investigated Thames valley to the south. This papers aim is to reconsider these sites in the context of significant changes occurring during the period and create a new narrative for these sites.

Location

Richmond Building, J Floor, room J19