Monument record BAW 212 - Roman settlement at East Anglia One Area 50 (EXC)

2017-2018: Excavation revealed evidence of Roman period, settlement represented by a series of recut ditches and pits running close to the north-western limit of excavation, moving to a rectilinear field system layout comprising two trackways and two rectilinear-enclosed areas interpreted as fields.

Roman activity was focussed in the central part of the excavation area, comprising a field system located on the edge of a Roman settlement, with pottery suggesting occupation between the 1st and early 4th centuries AD. The earliest phase of activity comprised a series of ditches and pits running close to the north-western limit of excavation, which may date as early as the Late Iron Age/Early Roman transition (Area 1), moving to a rectilinear field system layout. The rectilinear-enclosed areas making up the field system were difficult to define precisely, but the western and eastern edges of the Roman activity were marked by trackways, with large open fields to the north and south

Roman pottery (5,605 sherds/57.379kg) dating between the mid 1st and 4th centuries AD is dominated by local, reduced coarse wares largely comprising sherds from jars and bowls. Continental and regional imports, as well as regional imports from within Roman Britain, form a relatively minor component of the assemblage. (S1)

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

(see also Neolithic and Bronze Age, Iron Age, Saxon and Medieval)