Monument record ERL 323 - OUTLINE RECORD:Iron Age and Roman Linear features and pits Lakenheath Athletics track-new dormitories, Norwich Road Eriswell (CAS) EVAL

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).