Shakenoak revisited: post-Roman occupation and burial at a Cotswold-edge villa in the light of new evidence and approaches

ABSTRACT

Shakenoak villa (Oxfordshire) is situated at the interface of the sub-Roman Cotswolds with the Early Anglo-Saxon upper Thames region. A probable sacred site, it may have been an enduring ritual focus. Place-name and topographical evidence builds an unusually strong impression of continuity across the post-Roman period. As at other Cotswold villas, some buildings were occupied well into the fifth century. A cemetery of at least 22 inhumations, mainly male and with sharp-weapon trauma, provides radiocarbon dates which, when modelled, centre around the middle and second half of the fifth century. Multi-isotope analysis (δ¹³C_coll, δ¹⁵N, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, δ³⁴S, δ¹³C_carb, δ¹⁸O) of seven individuals indicates a northern European diet typical for this period, and suggests that most of the individuals came from south-west Britain. They may therefore have been warriors posted here by a post-Roman authority in the Cotswolds, not Germanic-speaking mercenaries from the Continent. The late- or sub-Roman military equipment, and a fifth-century bow brooch, are reassessed in the light of more recent studies and new parallels. A boundary ditch contained redeposited Anglo-Saxon material in the fifth- to eighth-century range, suggesting an adjacent settlement; eighth-century sceattas were found on the villa itself. With the new perspectives, Shakenoak re-emerges as a classic study in continuity.

Abbreviations

PAS	=	Portable Antiquities Scheme Database, https://finds.org.uk/
S	=	Sawyer Charter number. The Electronic Sawyer, https://esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/
S1 – S5	=	Brodribb, Hands and Walker 1968–78
VCH Oxon.	=	Victoria History of the County of Oxfordshire. 1–20 and continuing. 1939 – 2023. London: Archibald Constable and Institute of Historical Research.

Acknowledgments

For the original radiocarbon dating, we are grateful to The Duckworth Laboratory (University of Cambridge) and Mercedes Okumura for initial access to the human remains, and to Professor Tom Higham (then of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, now University of Vienna) for taking and processing the samples. The work was funded by the National Radiocarbon Facility (Archaeology) and the NERC Environment Isotope Facility. For the recent work, we are grateful to Dr Trish Biers for once again facilitating access to the remains and for providing sampling support. Thanks also go to Kirsty Harding for assisting with the production of figures; to Paul Booth for comments; to Peter Guest for information on Caerleon; and to the staff of the Ashmolean Museum for access to the Shakenoak metalwork, inevitably delayed and disrupted by the Covid pandemic restrictions. Rachael Hedges was a great support during production.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary data

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.2023.2267891.