Monument record MRM 172 - Neolithic, Middle Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Occupation East Anglia One Area 28

Archaeological Excavation of site 28a of the East Anglia One Offshore Windfarm project revealed a multiple phase site with Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Medieval and Post Medieval evidence. The earliest phase of the site was dated tot the early to Middle Neolithic and consisted of two pits. The fills contained evidence of the pits used as storage or rubbish pits, with one producing 194 sherds of neolithic pottery representing five jars and a possible bowl. Residual neolithic flints were also recovered.

The second phase of the site of Late Neolithic to early Bronze was characterised by a pit cluster sequence of 57 intercutting and discrete pits and indicated re-use and a possible late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age settle was located nearby beyond the cable route corridor. The earlier phase of the pit cluster contained pottery evidence for Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age, with 13 pits representing the later middle Bronze Age phase, identified through artefactual, stratigraphic and spatial relationships. All the pits of this periods were similar and may indicate an intensification of waste disposal, suggesting a continuity and expansion of localised domestic (S1).

The site revealed evidence for near continuous multi-phase domestic occupation extending from the Late Neolithic into the Early Iron Age which culminated in the establishment of an enclosed farmstead settlement during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The majority of the archaeological evidence was predominately dated to a period of Bronze Age and Iron Age activity associated with domestic and localised agricultural land-use, however, evidence of domestic use begins in the Neolithic. Sporadic Roman activity in the form of a boundary ditch bisected the site, whilst a north and south boundary ditch complex and quarry pit located at the south western margin of the site pointed towards later successive phases of post-medieval and 19 th century land use and mineral and aggregate extraction (S2).