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Summary

Bronze Age activity, The Glebe Land, Langtoft

Full description

PRN 37113
An excavation at Glebe Land between October 2007 to January 2008 revealed Bronze Age activity on the site. Features excavated which date from the early Bronze Age include a ploughed down ring ditch which contained fragments of Collared Urn and Beaker pottery, mostly within two pits. Adjacent to the ditch was a watering hole, which also contained a fragment of Beaker pottery, and a small pit/post hole which bisected a grave cut for an inhumation. The skeleton was a crouched adult ?male lying on his left side and the grave contained Beaker pottery.
Features from the middle Bronze Age included ditches, which were associated with field systems, eight ditches forming animal enclosures, a trackway and enclosed settlement. The enclosed area consisted of three ditches and within the area were three structures evidenced by post holes. To the east of the enclosure were watering holes which produced a domestic assemblage of pottery and faunal remains. One contained a timber platform in its base. Within this area were also eleven pits/wells, one of which was a midden contained pottery, animal bone, baked clay, worked clay, flint and burnt stone. On the western side of the linear ditches, 34 postholes were arranged in an alignment forming a fence line, or possibly a livestock enclosure. {1}{2}

Further excavations at Glebe Land were undertaken by Cambridge Archaeological Unit between October 2008 and January 2009. Mid Bronze Age linear features interpreted as a field system were revealed. Six associated pits/wells and watering holes which contained bone, pottery, burnt stone and a timber revetment were also recorded. {3}{4}

The investigations on this Bronze Age site have produced substantial marine shell assemblages. In addition to the marine silt snail (Hydrobia ulva), the Common or Blue sea mussel (Mytilus edulis) occurs and, in one case, its shells had been dumped into a ditch terminal. This suggests that marine resources were then actually exploited here – with the marine snail living on seaweed and, thereby, possibly hinting of that sea plant’s usage. {5}

<1> Cambridge Archaeological Unit, 2008, Excavations at Langtoft, Lincolnshire: The Glebe Land, - (Report). SLI12222.

<2> Cambridge Archaeological Unit, 2008, Excavations at Langtoft, Lincolnshire: The Glebe Land, LCNCC 2009.181 (Archive). SLI12223.

<3> Cambridge Archaeological Unit, 2010, Further Excavations at Langtoft: The Glebe Land 2007/8, CAU site code: LGL 08 (Report). SLI13486.

<4> Cambridge Archaeological Unit, 2010, Further Excavations at Langtoft: The Glebe Land 2007/8, LGL08 (Archive). SLI13487.

<5> Evans, Christopher, 2015, 'Wearing environment and making islands: Britain’s Bronze Age inland North Sea' in Antiquity, vol.89, issue 347, pp.1110-24 (Article in Serial). SLI15446.

Monument Types

• RING DITCH (Unknown date)
• BARROW (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 801 BC)
• BURIAL (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 801 BC)
• INHUMATION (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 801 BC)
• PIT (Early Bronze Age to Middle Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 1001 BC)
• POND (Early Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 1501 BC)
• WELL (Early Bronze Age to Middle Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 1001 BC)
• ENCLOSURE? (Middle Bronze Age - 1500 BC to 1001 BC)
• FIELD SYSTEM (Middle Bronze Age - 1500 BC to 1001 BC)

Associated Finds

• BURIN (Middle Neolithic to Early Bronze Age - 3000 BC to 1501 BC)
• CORE (Middle Neolithic to Early Bronze Age - 3000 BC to 1501 BC)
• FLAKE (Middle Neolithic to Early Bronze Age - 3000 BC to 1501 BC)
• SCRAPER (TOOL) (Middle Neolithic to Early Bronze Age - 3000 BC to 1501 BC)
• ANIMAL REMAINS (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 801 BC)
• BRIQUETAGE? (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 801 BC)
• FLAKE (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 801 BC)
• HUMAN REMAINS (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 801 BC)
• LOOMWEIGHT (Bronze Age - 2200 BC? to 801 BC?)
• SHERD (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 801 BC)
• MARINE MOLLUSCA REMAINS (Middle Bronze Age - 1500 BC to 1001 BC)
• STRUCTURAL TIMBER (Middle Bronze Age - 1500 BC to 1001 BC)

Associated Events

• Further Excavations at Langtoft: The Glebe Land 2007/8
• Excavation at the Glebe Land, Langtoft

Sources and further reading

Related records

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