Linear Earthwork, Tribal Boundary and Ritual Beheading: Aves Ditch from the Iron Age to the Early Middle Ages

Aves Ditch is one of the best-preserved and yet most enigmatic of the ancient monuments in Oxfordshire, and it has remained a landmark to the present day. Lined by a straight row of trees, it can be seen over a fair distance. It runs virtually dead straight over no less than 4.2 km from north of Kirtlington to the modern parish boundary between Upper Heyford and Middleton Stoney. For over three centuries scholars have wondered whether it is of pre-Roman, Roman or Anglo-Saxon origin, whether...