Archaeological Investigations at Lancaster Way, Ely: The Southwestern Area, Post Excavation Assessment

Résumé 0

Ahead of further expansion of the Lancaster Way Business Park, archaeological excavation of an area to the south of the existing facility exposed traces of an Iron Age–Roman settlement. The site formed an additional settlement area within the extensive Middle Iron Age–Roman multi-foci complex revealed by a series of excavations carried out at Lancaster Way over the last decade. The archaeology in the 2019 area comprised three distinct phases, spanning a period from the later Iron Age until at least the 2nd century AD. The initial later Iron Age–Early Roman phase comprised a curvilinear ditch/enclosure system defining an area of settlement. A single four-post structure was a part of this broader phase as well an inhumation, which had been placed/thrown face down into a boundary ditch. A re-modelling of the settlement layout was associated with later 1st–2nd century AD pottery. Although no structural features were assigned to this phase, an abundance of wall plaster (32kg), some of which was painted, provided a trace of the site’s ‘absent’architecture. The subsequent and final phase comprised a rectilinear arrangement of diminutive ditches defining a field system. One of the deeper ditches on site provided conditions suitable for the preservation of waterlogged plant remains and pollen. This evidence showed the settlement was situated amongst open pasture with scattered scrubland/hedgerow and woodland. The abundance of wood fragments and seeds including bramble, elder and ivy amongst the plant assemblage, implies that overgrown scrubland or a hedgerow grew in the immediate vicinity of the boundary ditch.