Lugg Valley Archaeology, Landscape Change and Conservation Project News, October 2006

The Lugg Valley Archaeology, Landscape Change and Conservation project is a project designed to improve our understanding of the development of the River Lugg since the end of the last Ice Age (c. 12,000 years BP). It involves a combination of archaeological and geosciences work delivered by Herefordshire Archaeology working in collaboration with the University of Wales at Aberystwyth and with five local heritage groups. The funding is provided through LEADER+ (European Union EAFGG and DEFRA), English Heritage and Herefordshire Council.

Excavations have been a feature of the project. At Stapleton and Bodenham site work in 2006 has revealed exciting new evidence of the Neolithic in Herefordshire. At Stapleton a circular crop mark ring ditch with an entrance on the eastern side was shown to be a Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age henge. A deposit in the upper ditch fills of cremated human and animal bone with fragments of pottery showed that it had been used into the Middle to Late Bronze Age as a site for depositing cremation pyre remains. A second identical ring ditch just 400m to the east was photographed by local flyer David Johnstone in July 2006. At Bodenham a crop mark enclosure was radiocarbon dated to 3500BC. Finds from a ditch terminal suggest that this enclosure was used for ritual purposes.