Environment and land use in the Lower Lea Valley c.12,500 BC – c.600 AD: Innova Park and the former Royal Ordnance Factory, Enfield

Ritchie, Kevin, Allen, Michael J, Barnett, Catherine, Cooke, Nicholas, Crowther, John, Gale, Rowena, Grant, Michael, Jones, Grace P, Knight, Stephanie, Leivers, Matt, McKinley, Jacqueline I, Macphail, Richard I, Mepham, Lorraine, Scaife, Robert G, Stevens, Chris J and Wyles, Sarah F (2008) Environment and land use in the Lower Lea Valley c.12,500 BC – c.600 AD: Innova Park and the former Royal Ordnance Factory, Enfield. Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 59, pp. 1-38. ISSN (print) 0076-0501

Abstract

Excavations revealed aspects of the changing environment of the floodplain of the Lower Lea Valley from the Late Glacial to the early historic periods. Evidence for land use mostly related to activity along the western bank of a former stream. Wooden revetments (the earliest dated one being Early Bronze Age), ditches, gullies, pits, a droveway, land surfaces and associated ‘midden-like’ deposits provided evidence for seasonal or periodic use and, arguably, habitation, dating principally from the Middle to Late Bronze Age. The economy of the site was focused on stock rearing, grazing and the exploitation of river resources. The ‘midden-like’ deposits, identified as interleaved layers of silt, sand and gravel containing pottery, human and animal bone, as well as flint and bone tools, and other objects, may be compared with similar, more extensive deposits from sites such as Runnymede Bridge, Surrey. There was no evidence of further activity until the Late Iron Age to early Romano-British period, when a series of fish-traps, pits and a structure within an enclosure indicate renewed, again possibly seasonal, use of the area. An evaluation on the site of the former Royal Ordnance Factory produced evidence for the continuing importance of waterfront management in this floodplain environment, in the form of the wooden revetment of another stream channel, radiocarbon dated to the late or post-Roman period.

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