Excavation in advance of engineering works along the M1 from Junctions 6a to 10 (between Hemel Hempstead and Luton) revealed significant archaeological remains of wide-ranging date. Important evidence for late Mesolithic and early Neolithic activity, including pits, was found at Junction 9, while later prehistoric features were more widely distributed but less concentrated. Late Iron Age and Roman features were most common, with significant rural settlements at Junctions 8 and 9, and further evidence for trackways and enclosures elsewhere. These sites were of fairly low status and concerned with mixed agriculture, though incidental activities included manufacture of puddingstone querns. Occupation was most intensive in the 1st-2nd centuries AD and on a reduced scale in the late Roman period. At Junction 8, however, an east-west trackway apparently survived as a landscape feature and in the 12th and 13th centuries was adjoined by a ditched enclosure containing structures belonging to a substantial farmstead.

An area of 6 ha just east of Kempsford was examined in 2000-2001 in advance of gravel extraction. The earliest features belonged to a field system defined by ditches probably dug in the late Iron Age. This was replaced in the early Roman period by a very regular layout of trackways linking field systems to settlements lying just outside the excavated area, all part of a programme of radical landscape reorganisation in the wider region. The nearby settlements probably went out of use in the 3rd century, but the fields probably remained in use for pasture. The main trackway was re-established in the later Roman period and a substantial timber stockade built alongside it. Occasional human and animal burials made both in the fields and at trackway junctions are an interesting aspect of the use of this landscape.