Monument record BAW 244 - Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age pit and ditch and Bronze Age Field System, Land at School Lane

Archaeological evaluation identified a Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age pit in the northern part of the evaluation area. The pit was truncated by a ditch of uncertain function which contained two sherds of most liekly residual pottery of the same period. An additional three undated ditches and two furrows were spread across the evaluation area. The alignment of the majority of ditches is parallel to existing filed boundaries and may represent parts of a medieval or post-medieval field system and/or furrows (S1).

An evaluation and subsequent excavation identified a series of ditches forming part of a Middle to Late Bronze Age field system. The small pottery assemblage retrieved from the ditches comprised Middle to Late Bronze Age sherds and several residual sherds from vessels of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age types. The pottery was evenly distributed throughout the ditch fills, suggesting a gradual accumulation and deposition, with finds originating from settlement or other activity located somewhere in the vicinity of the site. Several undated ditches, with an alignment parallel to existing field boundaries, may represent medieval or post-medieval field boundaries and furrows. The site fits into a growing corpus of developer-funded open area excavations in south-east Suffolk, which have found evidence for the formal subdivision of the landscape for agriculture from the Middle Bronze Age. These rectilinear systems of ditched fields and enclosures are likely to have been used for grazing and penning livestock, as well as for arable agriculture (S2).