Monument record LCS 175 - Land Opposite 18-30A Aldeburgh Road, Leiston

2014: Evaluation trenching identified a modest level of prehistoric activity across the northern half of the site. Some of the features coincided with anomalies identified in the geophysical survey. The remains appear to be largely Late Bronze Age and consist of scattered pits and ditches/gullies that may be a contemporary field system. A small concentration of features was also noted in the north-east corner of the site. Residual struck flints of Mesolithic to Early Neolithic suggest an earlier period of acitivty in the area (S1). Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2014 (S2)

2016: Preceding evaluation, comprising a 2013 geophysical survey followed by trial trenching in early 2014, demonstrated the presence of significant archaeological remains within the development area. Consequently, two mitigation areas totalling 1.45ha were identified for open area excavation. These excavation areas exposed and recorded the remains of various phases of past land use activity spanning the prehistoric to postmedieval periods. The earliest remains comprised artefacts of Mesolithic/Early Neolithic date that were residual in later features and deposits. Two clusters of pits containing worked flint,
pottery, animal bone and loom weight fragments marked the first tangible occupation of the landscape in the Early Neolithic period. The imposition of a Middle to Late Bronze trackway, with a coaxial field system to one side and unenclosed land containing the remains of a possible Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age monument to the other, constitutes an intensified and increasingly managed land use at this time. Iron Age activity within this landscape was sparse, until the imposition of an extensive rectilinear field system in the Roman period that was on a distinctively differing orientation to that of the Bronze Age. With only a few scattered contemporary pits encountered, there was negligible evidence for its occupation and it is conjectured to have been wholly agricultural in function.
Demonstrable further land use activity is absent until the post-medieval period when this vicinity of the landscape was again enclosed for agricultural use. (S3) (S5)

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2016 (S4)