Monument record ERL 323 - Iron Age and Roman Linear features and pits Lakenheath Athletics track-new dormitories, Norwich Road Eriswell

A previous evaluation identified a high degree of truncation in the S and W of the site and archaeological features comprising gullies and ditches were only identified in the N and E areas where original soil levels were preserved. The watching brief largely confirmed the evaluation, demonstrating the continuation of linear features across the site’s E side. Notably, no evidence for the westward continuation of the Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at ERL 104 was encountered in the area investigated. The work did, however, reveal evidence of earlier activity, comprising two Iron Age pits, one of which contained a discrete deposit of butchered animal bone. The pits also yielded some of the best Iron Age palaeoenvironmental evidence from RAF Lakenheath. At least three pockets of buried soil, likely filling hollows, were identified, which can be paralleled by a buried soil cut by the cemetery to the E. The hollows were cut by predominantly N–S and E–W aligned ditches forming part of a more extensive field system also recorded to the E and probably extending S towards previously excavated rectilinear/coaxial fields. These features lacked secure dating evidence, but are likely to have been in active use during the early medieval period. Roman pottery recovered from two ditches in the preceding evaluation, however, suggests possible earlier origins, with residual flint of probable Bronze Age date suggesting activity in the deeper past (S1).

A total of twenty-four trenches were excavated in this area which had been levelled for a sports field and running track. As a result a high degree of truncation was observed in the southern and western parts of the site and over 1m of made-ground built up over the northern end of the site. Whilst all archaeology was lost in the most severely truncated areas there was a density of largely north-south and east-west gullies and ditches identified in the north and east where original soil levels were better preserved. Finds dating provided evidence from early prehistoric to Anglo-Saxon periods, but it is probable that the cut features represent a continuation of the later prehistoric, Roman and Anglo-Saxon field systems observed in the many archaeological interventions to the east of the site. Some of the features identified during the evaluation can be shown to align well with the latest and most formally ordered field system probably dating to the Middle Saxon period. The absence of Early Anglo-Saxon burials indicates that the large core of burials of that date do not seem to continue into this area. Isolated burials of all dates however are a feature of RAF Lakenheath and the presence of inhumation or cremation burials on the site cannot be entirely ruled out (S2).