FMP: Lincs later prehistoric volume

English Heritage summaries. 2006/2007

Analysis is complete of seven sites of prehistoric date situated chiefly around the margins of the Lincolnshire Fenland and excavated as part of the Fenland Management Project.

Some of the sites, such as that at Dogdyke, were visited intermittently prior to being overwhelmed and sealed by fen deposits in the Bronze Age. Here, as further along the northern fen edge at Stickford, was evidence of prehistoric plough marks cut into the pre-fen surface. Late Bronze Age saltmaking was also present at Stickford. Aside from a round barrow, the ploughed Early Bronze Age riverside site at Dowsby, on the western fen edge, yielded evidence of Neolithic pit and posthole digging, including a structure, Late Bronze Age ditched enclosures with saltmaking and Iron Age settlement, this in addition to the Early Saxon settlement published previously.  One site in the fen, at Pinchbeck, took the form of lines of shallow pits of unknown function cur into the banks of a creek and dated to the mid Iron Age.

Sites at the junction of the Welland valley and the fen basin included Bronze Age and Iron Age features on an island at Deeping St. James and an Iron Age and Romano-British settlement on the banks of a cut-off channel of the river Welland at Market Deeping. Here much waterlogged material, particularly wood, was present in the channel fills, along with considerable quantities of pottery, loomweights and further evidence of Iron Age saltmaking.

The draft volume, containing extensive specialist reports, has been completed and is with the external reader.

This page was published on 14/11/2007