Monument record FRT 070 - OUTLINE RECORD:Mesolithic pits and worked flint and Early Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure (south Western Field)

A ten-day pedestrian survey funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – Insight Development Grant (Canada), was conducted on Potash Field, which comprises the southwest quadrant of the large Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure (FRT 005). The field was sub-divided into standardised 10m2 grids, starting on its eastern edge, adjacent to the B1010 road which bisects the monument north/south, and extended 160m westwards, i.e. beyond the limit of the interrupted ditch system as recorded by aerial photography. Victorian glazed pottery, ceramic building material, and glass was recorded in every survey grid, together with smaller quantities of clay pipes, and slate. The recovery of such finds is entirely in keeping with the results of surveying Latimer Field on the other side of the B1080, material interpreted as having been introduced to Freston from London via manuring practices (Carter and Aubert PSIAH 2022). There were also 769 prehistoric flaked flint artefacts (all collected), plus 2592 pieces of burnt stone; most of this material is believed to derive from Early Neolithic activity, though one thumbnail scraper of Early Bronze Age date was noted, together with a single 19th century gunflint.
The flaked flint assemblage was typical of the larger region’s Early Neolithic knapping traditions, with evidence for the on-site manufacture of blades, bladelets, and flakes, quantities of which were modified into scrapers, denticulates and notches, perforators, burins, and pieces with simple linear retouch. There were also a few projectiles, including leaf-shaped arrowheads (and preforms, showing that such weapons were being made at Freston), and a laurel-leaf biface. Spatial analysis of these data suggests different activity zones within this quadrant of the monument, with concentrations of burnt stone – likely the residue of fires related to cooking, and potting – immediately inside the western edge of the enclosure, while notable quantities of flint working were recorded in the field’s south-east corner.
Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2022 (S1)

Potash Farm, scheduled monument 1005982 (TM/1637; FRT 070). A magnetometry survey of the SW quadrant of Freston causewayed enclosure was carried out both prior to and during a dig at the site by the Freston Archaeological Research Mission directed by Professor Tristan Carter. The survey confirmed the location of several of the causewayed pits, previously known only via cropmarks. There were also additional features found with no known cropmarks and a possible circular feature c.50–55 m in diameter that appears to have shorter ditch sections concentric with its perimeter segments within the main. Given its form and size, this feature may be traces of a henge. While such monuments span the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, this example might be of the latter date given the recovery of Beaker pottery and diagnostic lithics such as barbed-and-tanged arrowheads and thumbnail scrapers from the site (S2).

With permission from Historic England and the landowners, the Freston Archaeological Research Mission (FARM) carried out a six-week excavation in the SW quadrant of the Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure (FRT 005). A small team from Canada and the Suffolk Archaeology Field Group excavated in two areas of the quadrant. Trench II was established in the field’s SE corner (18m by 3.5m, E–W) to examine one of the artefact ‘hotspots’ documented by the previous year’s pedestrian survey and to investigate the bank at the field’s SE edge. This linear earthwork is situated approximately where one of the Neolithic enclosure’s banks should have run when considering the monument’s outline from the aerial photography. Trench III (21m by 13.5m, E–W) was opened over the enclosure’s W circuit, with the aim being to contrast the stratigraphic sequence and the depositional practices of the two ditch termini with the ditch termini excavated in the site’s SE quadrant in 2019–21 (Trench I, FRT 063). Trench II represents the first time that FARM has investigated an area within the interior of the monument, which revealed eight circular pits of Early Neolithic date, typical in form, size (c.0.5–2m in diameter) and content to those excavated at several other broadly contemporary sites in the county, including Mildenhall and Reydon Farm. These pits were dug specifically to receive material culture, such as broken pottery, flaked and ground stone tools, charcoal, as well as food remains. Initially these pits were left open for a short time, as indicated by the sandy slump from the edges that accumulated at their base. After this, people gathered objects together (possibly collected from a surface midden) to be dumped into the pits, which were then covered and backfilled. While the reason for digging these Early Neolithic pits is still somewhat enigmatic, some believe that with settlement being impermanent during this time, pits may have acted as markers of those times of the year when people came together at the causewayed enclosure. The pots found in these pits were all highly fragmented, with none of the sherds comprising complete vessels. The pottery consisted almost entirely of Plainware vessels that are named for their lack of decoration. Each pit also produced lithics, not insignificant quantities of carbon, a few hazelnut shells, and even two small pieces of calcined bone, the first time such material has been recovered from Freston as the soil acidity is not conducive to the survival of organics, unless burnt. The rich worked flint assemblages provide evidence for on-site tool blade production, with entire knapping sequences represented, from cores and cortical debris, to preformed and/or broken implements such as leaf-shaped and laurel leaf points, plus end products in the form of numerous blades and retouched scrapers. A few quartzite cobble tools were also recovered, some likely to have been used as hammerstones for flint-working.
The two adjacent causewayed enclosure ditch termini (inner and outer) excavated in Trench III were narrower, shallower, less stratigraphically complex, and artefact-poorer compared to those investigated in Trench I. The inner ditch (Feature #054) was dug to natural at a depth of ~2 m, with its fill comprising a series of carbon-rich anthropogenic dumps interspersed with waterlogged deposits that likely accumulated during periods of abandonment. There was also one clear instance where the ditch had been recut, followed by renewed dumping activity, before the site (or this part of the monument) finally went out of use, with the ditch then being gradually infilled by windblown deposits.
The outer ditch (Feature #061) was shallower still, at 1.4 m deep, and its anthropogenic fills producing smaller quantities of finds. The enclosure ditches’ ceramic assemblages are notably different from those of the pits in Trench II; here not only find Plainware bowl fragments were found, but also a not insignificant amount of finely made decorated pots, i.e. Mildenhall ware, the decorated bowl tradition of Early Neolithic East Anglia. The pots from the ditches comprise the residue from feasting and other activities at the enclosure (i.e. more socially meaningful acts than reflected in the pit deposits), which would have included vessels of various sizes for cooking and serving, as well as small cups to consume beverages. As to the contents of these bowls and cups, microscopic and isotopic analyses of food crusts are currently being conducted at the British Museum (by Professor Carl Heron) and York University (by Dr Lara González Carretero). Once again, no complete pots were recovered; this is quite typical at Freston and other causewayed enclosures. It is tempting to imagine Neolithic feasts that involved the making, using and breaking of pots as people gathered at the enclosure to commemorate special moments or people to the community. It is believed that those pots central to socially significant gatherings were withdrawn from circulation immediately post use and deliberately broken, with fragments of the vessel then shared amongst the participants as mnemonic devices, with the rest of the sherds then being buried across the site or taken elsewhere.
Between the inner and outer ditches ran another segment of palisade trench, though here there was much less evidence for the timbers having been burnt (unlike those in one stretch in Trench I), aside from one large, carbonised terminus post that marked the entrance way. Interestingly, unlike in other parts of the monument where the palisade seems to have been established to visually block certain causeways (the entrances can still be accessed, however, by simply walking around the ends of the intermediary fence), the palisade in Trench II seems to frame, or emphasize, this access into the monument. While there was no evidence for Early Bronze Age reuse of the ditches (in contrast to those in Trench I), a Beaker sherd was recovered from a penannular ditch dug in front of — and largely blocking — the inner causeway, which either represents a very late alteration of the monument, or perhaps relates to what might be an important Early Bronze Age feature defined by geophysical survey this summer within the Neolithic monument (see above).
Arguably the major discovery from Trench III comprised nine pits of later Mesolithic date based on the hundreds of flint artefacts recovered from them, with numerous retouched pieces, many being microlithic in character. The largest pit measured some 1.25m in diameter, and 0.55m in depth, and at least three had post-pipes in section. It is tentatively suggested that these might have been markers for cremations based on comparisons with a site in Ireland (Hermitage) and Langford in nearby Essex. To test this hypothesis the aim is to send burnt stone from these features to be tested for human fats, while carbonised twigs from three of these pits have been sent for radiocarbon dating. More generally, Mesolithic flintwork was found everywhere across Trench III, the material percolating down into the natural gravels (as evidenced by four small test pits, and that every Neolithic feature contained residual Mesolithic finds), a glacial outwash layer that optically stimulated luminescence dates indicate were deposited between 400,000–500,000 years ago. This is the first clear evidence from the site of a pre-Neolithic heritage; residual Mesolithic material was also found in most of the Trench II pits, within the natural gravels (as evidenced by two small test pits), and a 1m2 test pit within the central spring.
One of FARM’s major research questions has been to consider why this locale was chosen for the Early Neolithic monument’s creation. The central spring likely afforded both practical (potable water) and symbolic significance, but there are many springs on the Shotley peninsula. Might there have been an existing importance accorded this locale, relating to indigenous hunter-gatherer traditions and cosmologies, or was this virgin territory attractive for other reasons? The evidence for major Mesolithic activity at the site, possibly including an ancestral burial ground, is tantalising, with the Early Neolithic settlers from mainland northern Europe arguably appropriating an existing sacred landscape and building their enclosure to envelop the space — a hypothesis that might also help to explain why the monument is so large. The excavation was funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada – Insight Development Grant (S2).