Thame is a market town in Oxfordshire, with a river Thame flowing through on its journey to the Thames. It was probably an important place to set down roots as there was plenty of water and the soil is fertile. It is also cattle country. At www.cotswoldarchaeology.co.uk/important-discoveries-at-thaame-oxfordshire/ … a Neolithic causewayed enclosure has been found just outside the town of Thame (on what is planned to be a new housing estate). It has ditches and banks and these meeting places are usually dated to the fourth millennium BC. Such gathering places are not unusual – but the area appears to have been continually occupied from the Neolithic into the modern era. Three concentric ditches circuit an area of high ground above the river Thame (which drains the Vale of Aylesbury). Later, a small henge monument was constructed within the enclosure (after 3000BC). In the Iron Age a substantial enclosure was built – but away from the Neolithic enclosure. High ground was also favoured during the Iron Age.
During the Roman period we have a number of trackways leading towards the high ground location, two thousand years after the causewayed enclosure was built and in use. Various enclosures occur in the nearby landscape, presumably the remains of farms. However, little evidence of substantial buildings has been found – one of the annoying things about Iron Age archaeology.
Modern Thame was founded during the Saxon period – possibly on the site of a Roman villa estate or settlement.