Site Event/Activity record ESF30153 - Excavation 2021 -Rendlesham Revealed Project

In August and September 2021 the first of three seasons of archaeological excavation on the site of the 5th- to 8th-century settlement complex at Rendlesham was undertaken as part of the community archaeology project Rendlesham Revealed. The project is funded by The National Heritage Lottery Fund and managed by Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service. Five trenches were opened in two fields: three (Trenches 8, 9 and 10) in Sand Walk (RLM 044) and two (Trenches 11 and 12) in Dog Kennel Field (RLM 036). The trench numbering follows sequentially from excavation in 2013 and 2014. Cotswold Archaeology were contracted to run the site and post-excavation. Professor Christopher Scull was the principal academic advisor and site director. SCCAS coordinated and oversaw the project. The fieldwork was conducted by local people as volunteers, over 200 people were involved including from the general public, local societies, Suffolk Mind, Suffolk Family Carers and local primary schools. Trench 8 was situated to investigate enclosure ditches known from remote sensing. Trenches 9 and 10 were situated to ground-truth presumed early medieval settlement features, SFBs and pits, known from remote sensing, to test the extent of early medieval settlement activity, and to investigate presumed prehistoric field or enclosure boundaries also known from remote sensing. Trenches 11 and 12 were situated to characterise the archaeology in an area where concentrations of metalwork in the ploughsoil indicated significant early medieval activity, and where remote sensing indicated macula features that could be pits or SFBs; the location of trench 11 also allowed the investigation of presumed prehistoric field or enclosure boundaries known from remote sensing. Hand-excavation of test pits to assess the character and quantity of archaeological material in the ploughsoil had been undertaken in Sand Walk in 2013, and was not needed. As Dog Kennel Field had not previously been tested archaeologically, three 2m x 2m test pits were hand excavated to assess the frequency and character of material in the ploughsoil, two in Trench 11 and one in Trench 12. Once the test pits were finished, the remaining ploughsoil in Trenches 11 and 12, and that from Trenches 8, 9 and 10 in Sand Walk Field, was stripped. All archaeological contexts revealed were hand-excavated, with fills sieved and metal detected.Opening the trenches entailed the removal of c.0.4m-0.6m of overburden comprising modern ploughsoil (mid grey-brown friable sandy-silt) and intermittent traces of the ‘B’ horizon overlying the natural. Agricultural activity had mixed and blurred the interface between the natural and overlying soils in many areas, and overburden was removed to the depth at which archaeological features became apparent against the natural subsoil. The exception to this was Trench 12 (Dog Kennel Field) where the ‘B’ horizon survived as a layer 12cm–37cm thick below the modern ploughsoil, masking any archaeological features cut into the natural. All trenches showed evidence that deep ploughing and subsoiling had impacted the buried archaeology, and this probably explains occasional finds of intrusive later material in earlier contexts.