Monument record MNL 798 - Multi period occupation, Mildenhall Community Hub

2018: Following an evaluation in 2016/17, archaeological excavation was carried out on the site of the Community Hub, off Sheldrick Way and Queensway/West Row Road. The archaeological horizons were preserved to variable levels across the site relating to the levels of ploughing, with significant depths of certain ditches and pits truncated, suggesting that shallower features had already been completely lost. The earliest and largest feature was a palaeochannel that ran across approximately half the length of the excavation area. During the Middle Iron Age to Early Roman period, the palaeochannel had already silted up somewhat. It appeared to have been marshy, with peat and fine silt formations, at a time when the deposition of animal remains, a human mandible, occasional coins and occasional prehistoric pottery and worked flint was also taking place. Several Middle Iron Age ditches appeared to utilise the channel terminating within it to form enclosures. Several other ditch boundaries were likely contemporary as were several clusters of circular pits, numbering between two and twenty-five features in each group. These produced occasional remains of pottery and other material, including the remains of two adult burials, whilst another contained a human skull fragment. An atypical pit cluster also contained the remnants of an oven or kiln base as well several cow skulls and a complete pony skeleton. Saxon remains on the site included a shallow sunken featured building (SFB) and a presumably associated but undated post-hole building; this is in addition to two SFBs and halls, and a 7th-century burial recorded in the earlier evaluation. Limited evidence for Late Iron Age/Early Roman and medieval to post-medieval occupation was identified from a low level of finds including, amongst others, a 2nd-century AD duck brooch, a steelyard arm, tokens, coins and pilgrim badges.

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2018. (S1)

2022: Archaeological investigations by Suffolk Archaeology CIC (SACIC) and Cotswold Archaeology (CA) from 2016 to 2019 of a 26ha site southwest of Mildenhall recorded principal phases of late prehistoric and Early Anglo-Saxon occupation. A single highstatus Anglo-Saxon burial (Grave 0404) of the mid 7th century AD was also found with grave goods, including a hanging bowl, spear and shield. Isotope analysis of the male skeleton has suggested that the deceased was of local birth. Broadly contemporary buildings include small post-built ‘halls’ and sunken-featured buildings (SFBs). The prehistoric occupation is dated by associated pottery and radiocarbon determinations to the Middle Iron Age (400 BC–100 BC). The evidence of settlement comprised over 120 pits in around a dozen pit clusters, as well as ditches that represent the remains of farming enclosures. The mainly cylindrical pit features contribute to an ongoing debate about the nature of ‘grain storage pits’ and their disuse in the period: in keeping with other finds from across Britain, some of the pits are marked by final acts of ‘structured’ or ‘special’ deposition. They include two pits that contained adult human burials, another that had a complete horse, and one which provided a sheltered hollow for an oven. The enclosure ditches of the Iron Age settlement were located to take advantage of a large natural feature in the south of the site, a mired palaeochannel (2157) that had once been a tributary of the River Lark. Combined macrofossil plant, pollen, diatom and mollusc evidence, together with a geoarchaeological study of the channel’s formation and silting-up processes, have allowed for the reconstruction of the farmed environment from the prehistoric to medieval periods. In addition, finds of coins, other artefacts, and animal and human remains within the channel fills suggest the possibility that further ritual activity was centred on this marshy ‘wet’ feature in the later Iron Age (100 BC–AD 43) and Early Roman period (AD 43–200) (S2).