| Description | ASWYAS undertook a programme of archaeological trial trenching and targetted excavation from January 2008 to May 200, prior to the development of the Hemsworth to A1 link road. In total the work involved the excavation of 239 evaluation trenches, many of which were targeted on crop marks and/or geophysical anomalies. The results of the trial trenching are described in PRN 13129. From this evaluation 32 open area excavations were also undertaken encompassing an area of 14200 square metres.
Area 1:
Was located to further investigate remains revealed in Trench 9 and Trench 10. The excavation covered approximately 1575m squareand revealed two enclosure ditches, four gullies, two post holes, four pits and an oven/corn drier. also discovered was a possible grave cut and two further unclassified features. Phasing of the features was problematic due to the paucity of finds and the lack of stratigraphic relationships. Four phases of activity were suggested: Phase 1 consisted of two roughly parralel gullies, a possible third gully, a pit and an unclassified feature. one of the gullies was found to contain two sherds of 2nd 4th Century Romano British pottery.
Phase 2 consisted of a enclosure ditch which entered the open area excavation at it eastern edge and continued westwards 42m before turning 90 degrees to the south western corner of the excavation. The ditch was c. 2.8m wide and 1.3m deep. 10 hand excavated sections revealed either four of five fills. finds from this phase consisted of fired clay, pottery, slag, a single bone fragment and a single residual flint.
Following the hand excavation it was agreed with WYAAS to further machine excavate features in the interest of finds recovery. As this work was undertaken a pit and a possible grave cut were discovered. Re cuts were identified by this work and a oven/corn drier was also identified, sealed by the upper fill of the gully. These features represent Phase 3. The pit was found to contain no artefacts and the fills were environmentally sterile. The possible grave cut (aligned north/south) contained two fills and produced no artefactual material. environmental analyses produced small quantities of birch and cherry wood charcoal. The oven/corn drier comprised of a bowl shaped pit (1.5m by 1.5m by 0.4m) with a flue (1m by 0.45m by 0.18 deep) to the east. The corn drier had eight fills which produced no finds. Oak charcoal was discovered bu there were no cereal grains.
Phase 4 consisted of north/south aligned furrow plough scars. unphased features included a pit, two post holes and a unclassified feature.
Open Area 2: Only a modern ditch was discovered and therefore Open Area 2 was abandoned.
Open Area 3: Centred on trench 42 which produced a undated pit, no further archaeological features were identified.
Open Area 4:
The excavation incorporated trenches 50, 51, 52, 53 and covered an area of 1300m square. Open Area 4 revealed a series of ditches forming a possible trackway and three sides of an enclosure. Ten pits/postholes an a large spread deposit were also discovered.
Open Area 7: covering an area of 100m square was centred on a suspected prehistoric pit. no further archaeological remains were discovered.
Open Area 10: covering 345m square and was located to further investigate an undated ditch identified in Trench 92. A 2m section was excavated but no dating evidence was recovered.
Open Area 11: covering 108m square and located to further investigate an undated ditch in Trench 110. Another 2m section was excavated but no datable was recovered.
Open Areas 13 and 14 were no excavated due to thei proximity to an existing carriageway.
Open Area 16: was not opened due to space and access issues to the paddock to the south.
Open Area 20: covering 165m square was located to determine wheteher there were further features associated three postholes identified in Trench 205. A highly weathered natural deposit led to the suggestion |