'Ten millennia-worth of history' unearthed by Thames Water » Environment » 24dash.com

Ten millennia-worth of history have been unearthed by Thames Water at one of its sewage treatment works in Berkshire.

Stone Age flintwork dating back to 8,000 BC has been discovered at the site near Kintbury, along with pieces of a Bronze Age urn, burnt bone and charcoal, suggesting the land was subsequently used for burial rituals. Shards of late Iron Age pottery were also discovered, clustered in pits and ditches. 

The remains of three bread ovens, complete with hearth, flue and furnace, prove that the Romans also settled the area and evidence of two large gateposts indicates that visitors to the Roman community would have had to pass through an imposing entrance.

Dr. Roy Entwhistle, an archaeologist working for Thames Water, said: "Given how quiet this corner of the Kennet Valley is today, it's remarkable to think that so many different people have called it home over the last ten thousand years.

"We knew there had been Roman settlement in the area as a bathing house dating from that period was discovered by a schoolteacher on a nearby field in the 1950s.

"The discovery of the bread ovens and the gateposts suggest the bathing house would have been part of a large, working Roman community, living near the London to Bath road.

"We were particularly pleased to discover the Mesolithic flintwork which would have been used by hunter-gatherers to fashion tools. Finding these prehistoric collections undisturbed is rare in Southern England."