Site Event/Activity record ESF20687 - New Villas, Center Parcs, Elveden

A programme of archaeological fieldwork, consisting of evaluation, excavation and monitoring was carried out on four separate blocks of land within the Center Parcs Holiday Village, Elveden, Suffolk. The works identified widespread archaeological deposits despite the shallow depth of archaeological levels and disturbance from the sites former landuse as a pine plantation. Limited early activity in the Mesolithic/Neolithic and Bronze/Iron Age periods was identified, but the bulk of the evidence related to a widespread phase of Late Iron Age/Early Roman activity in the 1st century B.C to 1st century A.D. This activity appears to have consisted of a ditched enclosure system associated with a probable agricultural farmstead, with a range of linear ditches and isolated or loose scatters of pits indicating a broad spread of agricultural fields, enclosures and trackways. Although there were was no clear indication of structures upon the site, perhaps due to truncation and tree disturbance, the finds and environmental assemblage suggests the presence of domestic occupation, butchery and cereal processing in the immediate vicinity. The settlement focus with which the site is associated appears to have ceased or shifted after the Late Iron Age/Early Roman transition period, perhaps to an area of 2nd-4th century occupation in the fields to the south, and it seems that the site became marginal or rarely used land beyond the periphery of this later settlement.