Eckweek, Peasedown St John, Somerset

This volume presents the results of archaeological survey and excavation at Eckweek, Somerset, which yielded one of the most important medieval rural settlement sequences yet excavated from south-west England.At the centre of the narrative is a succession of well-preserved buildings spanning the late 10th to the 14th centuries A.D. forming the nucleus of a Domesday manor and its Late Saxon precursor. Detailed analysis of the structural sequence offers a new regional perspective on pre-Conquest earthfast timber architecture and its subsequent (12th-century) replacement by masonry traditions. Culminating in a richly preserved 14th-century farmhouse, including a very complete assemblage of structural and domestic objects, the structural archaeology provides an unusually refined picture of the internal organisation of later medieval domestic space within a rural farming setting. Detailed analytical attention is given to the abundant artefactual and environmental datasets recovered from the excavations (including prolific assemblages of medieval pottery and palaeonvironmental data) with a nuanced appraisal of their interpretative implications. Anyone with an interest in the dynamics and regional complexity of medieval rural communities will find this a stimulating and enlightening read.

Andrew Young was born in Gloucestershire, is a graduate of the University of Bristol and a former student of the late Mick Aston. He is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and has worked as a commercial archaeologist since 1987 and as Principal Archaeologist with Avon Archaeological Unit in Bristol, which he founded in 1991. He and his wife Donna live in Highland Scotland but he remains a Director of Avon Archaeology and also works part-time as Senior Archaeologist with Highland Archaeology Services.