Archaeological excavations on three sites around the south-eastern perimeter of modern Reading have led to the discovery of unexpected evidence for several periods in the area's past. At Ridgeway School, a late Bronze Age burnt mound provided two radiocarbon dates and was accompanied by broadly contemporary pits. Occupation continued into the early Iron Age, and was resumed in the late Iron Age or early Roman period and lasted until middle Roman times, with abandonment, in or not long after AD274, being marked by the deposition of a coin hoard which the owner was never able to recover.

At Matthews green Farm, a middle Iron Age farm represented by a roundhouse, perhaps rebuilt twice, an animal pen, and a few pits was occupied for, probably, a short period around 400BC. Its inhabitants were engaged in iron production as well as farming. In the Roman period, occupation took place on a new site to the north, but again seems to have been a modest, largely self-sufficient farm. A surprising result of radiocarbon dating was the discovery that pits which had been considered to be charcoal clamps related to the Iron Age iron production were in fact medieval.

At Croft Road in Spencers Wood, the more modest discovery of a middle Iron Age field system is nevertheless also of some interest as here, as with all three sites, the chronology is supported by a programme of radiocarbon dating.