Extensive excavations near the village of Broughton, which lies on the
outskirts of Milton Keynes, revealed the fluctuating fortunes of
neighbouring settlements from the Iron Age to the medieval period. A
middle Iron Age 'hamlet' was succeeded in the 1st century BC by various
farmsteads which were at their height in the early Roman period.
Associated with these were richly furnished cremation cemeteries of
Aylesford(-Swarling) type, with burial continuing into the
Romano-British period. The cemeteries provide the largest group of such
burials yet found in Buckinghamshire and reflect the position of
Broughton within the territory of the Catuvellauni. Cremation burial
ceased in the mid 2nd century and two of the farmsteads were abandoned
soon afterwards. The main settlement continued to develop during the
late Roman period, while a new farmstead nearby survived into the early
5th century. Elsewhere, a cluster of sunken-featured buildings yielded
early Saxon pottery in Roman form and possible feasting waste. These
settlements were in turn abandoned, to be replaced after the Norman
Conquest by a farmstead and surrounding ridge and furrow field system
which formed an outlying part of the village that had, by the time of
Domesday, taken the name of Broughton - 'the farm or settlement by the
brook'.
