Bronze Age barrow and pit alignments at Upton Park, south of Weedon Road, Northampton

MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) was commissioned by RPS Group PLC, on behalf of Morris Homes, to undertake archaeological work on land at Upton Park south of Weedon Road, Northampton.Two adjacent palaeochannels crossed the western extent of the site and are likely to have dated to the Pleistocene period.The earliest evidence of human activity consisted of a background scatter of Neolithic flint.The first feature was an isolated barrow that was established in the early Bronze Age.A later unurned cremation was cut into the backfill of the recut ditch and radiocarbon dated to the end of the early Bronze Age or the beginning of the middle Bronze Age.At least one isolated early Bronze Age pit was found in another part of the site.Parts of two late Bronze Age/early Iron Age sinuous pit alignments were recorded over nearly 0.5km within the site with c257 pits revealed.An estimated 66% of these pits by volume were examined.This is the first time in the county since Wollaston Quarry in the