Little Woodbury

A palisaded Iron Age farmstead, south of Salisbury in Wiltshire, England, whose excavation set new standards in British Iron Age studies. It consisted of a circular post-built house surrounded by corn-drying frames, granaries, and storage pits, all enclosed within a wooden stockade. It was probably occupied from the 4th-2nd centuries BC.

Palisaded farmstead of the Iron Age (probably beginning in the 4th century bc) located on Salisbury plain, southern England. Excavations by Gerhard Bersu in 1938-9 were among the first to employ the open area approach to prehistoric sites and the results achieved make this still a classic excavation. Bersu identified a single large circular, post-built house, rebuilt several times, four-post granaries and storage pits (both for grain), two-post structures interpreted as drying racks (for hay and straw) and working areas where grain was parched. The site is likely to have been occupied by a small group, perhaps an extended family, who lived by mixed farming, cultivating cereals and breeding cattle, sheep and pig.