Shifford

Shifford is a hamlet in the civil parish of Aston, Cote, Shifford and Chimney in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England. It is on the north bank of the River Thames about south of Witney.

==Archaeology== There was a modest Iron Age and Roman-era pastoral settlement east of what is now Old Shifford Farm. It was abandoned around the end of the 1st century AD, but a new settlement was established slightly north of the old one toward the end of the 3rd century. The Oxford Archaeological Unit excavated the sites in 1988–89, after which it was excavated as a gravel pit parallel with Brighthampton Cut. Late Iron Age and Roman artefacts found at the site include ceramic loom weights and parts of pots and plates; Roman coins from the 1st to the 4th centuries, but particularly the late 3rd to late 4th centuries; copper items including brooches, a pin and a bracelet, iron items, particularly nails; lead items including weights, pot rivets and lead shot; and stone items including several quern-stones and a whetstone. Bone fragments found at the site came mostly from cattle (16.4%), sheep and goats (10.7%) and horses (10.7%). Farming at the site seems to have been mostly pastoral; there was little evidence of arable cultivation.