Monument record LVT 025 - Bronze Age ring ditch, part of a compelx of four barrows

Ring ditch. Part of LVT 010 complex. Slight central mark (S1). September - December 1978: Excavated prior to destruction by Ipswich southern bypass. Geophysical survey added no further information. Excavation demonstrated ring ditch to be 35m in diameter, 4.5m wide and 2m deep. Also inner depression 17m in diameter, 3m wide and 0.5m deep. In centre just below plough level, was remains of an inverted collared urn over a cremation charcoal from ditch sections taken for C14 dating (S2).
Analysis of the cremated bone under the collared urn has confirmed them as coming from a human adult, representing about half of the skeleton. A patch of charcoal on the surface of the inner depression has yielded a C14 date of 1070+/-70bp (HAR-3742) cal. AD 890-1020 (S3).
A Bronze Age barrow is visible on aerial photographs as the cropmarks of a ring ditch and possible central feature, centred on circa TM23874073, in Levington parish. The ring ditch is visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs from 1951 (S4) and remains visible up to 1996 (S5), following the excavation described above. The cropmarks would suggest a ditch up to circa 4 metres in width, a central cut feature approximately 3 metres in diameter, and the diameter of the ring ditch at its widest point as circa 36 metres.