Life on the Dallington Brook

Archaeological investigations at Harlestone Park, Northamptonshire between 2022 and 2023 have revealed evidence for a landscape shaped by humans over several millennia. Straddling the Dallington Brook near New Duston, the site has shed light on how this landscape has been exploited in varying ways since the Early Neolithic through to the modern day. The site was initially occupied on a seasonal basis but during the Middle Bronze Age the site was used for funerary activity with two groups of cremation burials situated either side of the brook. Subsequently, during the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age periods, the site was incorporated into an area demarcated by an extensive network of boundaries defined by alignments of pits. The most intensive phase of occupation occurred in the Middle to Late Iron Age, when a large polyfocal settlement developed on either side of the brook. A Middle to late Roman limekiln may have served the nearby settlement at Duston.