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Summary

A group of 5 ring ditches, largely excavated in advance of gravel quarrying. Some remains may survive in unquarried strip alongside river.

Full Description

A group of five ring ditches, identified from aerial photographs, and excavated in 1972-1974 in advance of gravel extraction. The ring ditches represent a Bronze Age barrow cemetery, in use throughout the second millenium BC. Two urned primary cremation burials were retrieved, the remaining three barrows showing no surviving burial. Associated with one barrow was an external burial, in a small post-built structure. In some cases mound material survived, and posthole structures were found sealed underneath, indicating the presence of an earlier settlement. Evidence of a contemporary flint industry was found in the ditch fills of two of the barrows.

The site was under cultivation during the Iron Age, and by the late iron Age or early Roman period a field system had been laid out. It has been suggested that its location on the flood plain of the River Great Ouse indicates that the site was seasonally occupied, the main focus being above the flood plain. A ditch seems to have been placed to separate the barrows from encroaching fields in the first century BC, but this had been filled in by the mid first century AD. A habitation area was constructed in the centre of the area in the second century AD but this seems to have been occupied seasonally and for a short time only. Fragments of pipe-clay Venus figurines have been taken as evidence of a Romano-Celtic shrine on the site, two burials were found dating to the 2nd or 3rd century AD, one a cremation and the other an inhumation. Two hearths were found in the upper fills of one of the barrow ditches, and carbon dating placed one of them in the 4th century AD and the other in the 6th, indicating continued sporadic use of the site; an inhumation burial just inside the ditch of one of the barrows was dated to the 6th or 7th century AD. Two parallel linear features dating to the medieval period were interpreted as furrows.

Protected Status: None recorded

Monument Type(s):

• BUILDING (Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age - 3000 BC to 1501 BC)
• POST HOLE (Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age - 3000 BC to 1501 BC)
• CEMETERY (Bronze Age - 2350 BC to 701 BC)
• CREMATION (Early Bronze Age - 2350 BC to 1501 BC)
• RING DITCH (Bronze Age - 2350 BC to 701 BC)
• FIELD SYSTEM (Late Bronze Age to Roman/Romano-British - 800 BC to 409 AD)
• PIT (Late Bronze Age to Roman/Romano-British - 800 BC to 409 AD)
• ANIMAL BURIAL (Late Iron Age to Roman/Romano-British - 100 BC to 409 AD)
• BUILDING (2nd Century to 3rd Century - 101 AD to 200 AD)
• INHUMATION (2nd Century to 8th Century - 101 AD to 700 AD)
• HEARTH (4th Century to 7th Century - 301 AD to 600 AD)

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events: None recorded

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.