Monument record CSM 048 - Early Bronze Age pits and Roman ditches, Days Road, Capel St Mary

2016: A small number of features of prehistoric or Roman date were recorded during an archaeological evaluation. Two small pits in the east of the site contained pottery and flints dating to the Early Bronze Age. Several small ditches in the south of the site contained Roman pottery, and similar small ditches on similar alignments were recorded in the southeast and west. The ditches were very small and appeared regularly spaced, which may suggest an agricultural or horticultural origin. The absence of subsoil suggests that if arable agriculture did take place historically within the evaluated area, it was not longlasting. However, their alignments are suggestive of track-side ditches associated with the modern footpath entrances on the central southern boundary and the southwest corner of the site. The dating evidence from the ditches and the position of the Roman villa (CSM002) to the south suggests that Roman cultivation may have extended into the evaluation site (S1)(S4).

2017: Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2017 (S2)

2017: Excavation revealed a Bronze Age post-built roundhouse and dispersed pitting, a small quantity of Iron Age pits and an area of Roman cultivation ditching (S2). The phases of Bronze Age and Iron Age activity are probably each related to previously recorded contemporary evidence to the east and west, and indicate widely disperesed occupation and utilisation of the landscape during these periods. The Roman field ditches, together with similar examles 300m to the south, are almost certainly associated with a villa site to the west at Windmill Hill and are similar to other examples of early Roman cultivation ditches that have been seen in close proximity to villa sites elsewhere within the county (S3).