Monument record ERL 225 - OUTLINE RECORD: IA, Roman and Anglo-Saxon occupation and Burials USAF WORKS - 2012 EXC (SCCAS)

Excavations were carried out prior to the construction of new sewage filtration tanks on a site that lies on the edge of Caudle Head, where spring water surfaces from a buried watercourse which drains W into the Fens. These revealed 1.5m of deposits, with peat at the bottom and top of occupation soils that dated from the Late Bronze Age through to the post-Roman period. There are at least seven phases of Roman enclosures or droveway ditches and fence lines interspersed with dumps of occupation soil.
Two individual features stand out: a Roman cremation, which is stratigraphically early in the Roman occupation, and the first to found on the airbase, and the ‘ritual’ burial of a horse’s head (paralleling, perhaps, three ‘placed’ horses’ heads in a pit from site LKH 190 that have been dated to the Iron Age). The site appears to be on the margins of occupation, due to the watercourse, wet environment and sloping ground. Occupation through the Late Iron Age and Roman period is recorded more intensely elsewhere on the airbase. This site displays a complex, vertical, stratigraphic sequence and it is intended that an integrated study involving micromorphology and pollen alongside macrofossils and other finds work will contribute to our understanding of the wider Roman settlement. The macrofossil assessment has identified crop plants such as oats, barley, rye and wheat; many of which have been charred suggesting processing, possibly for malting; weed and wetland plants are also present. The pollen assessment also shows up weed and wetland plants, however crop remains are largely absent and it has been mooted that the large collection of stratified animal bone offers a pointer towards the economy of the site. Establishing the balance between pastoral and arable farming will be a fundamental question to be asked of the analysis of the environmental evidence and particularly the animal bone assemblage. Two radiocarbon dates have been determined from the peat: cal 814 BC for the lowest peat formation and cal AD 661 where there is an hiatus in settlement. It is hoped that further dates from wet deposits will help refine the morphology and chronology of the site.
Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2012 (S1,S2).