Gideon Road, Wandsworth

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned to undertake a palaeoenvironmental assessment of borehole BH8, comprising a thin c. 0.2m thick peat preserved below Holocene alluvium and sealed by made ground, on land at Gideon Road, Wandsworth, Greater London. Two samples submitted for radiocarbon dating from the base and top of the peat produced dates of 4782-4545 and 4221-3962 cal. BC respectively, corresponding with the late Mesolithic, with the possibility that the top of the peat may extend into the earliest Neolithic.  

Pollen was well-preserved and present in significant quantities, indicating a mixed woodland on the dry ground initially characterised by pine, hazel, oak and elm, followed by a shift to lime-oak woodland, with alder growing in the wetland.