#ThrowbackThursday Abbotstone

This #ThrowbackThursday we remember a major excavation at Abbotstone on the outskirts of Colchester, which identified an ancient farmstead. Evidence suggested the site was occupied during the Iron Age, Roman period and medieval period (12th-13th century) 

The site was discovered as a result of cropmarks on aerial photograph, which can help to show buried archaeological features, and was aided by fieldwalking and a magnetometry survey. It appears that this farm settlement grew larger as time progressed 

There was evidence to suggest that the settlement was involved in activities such as food preparation/storage, animal keeping, textile production and some metal-working, although not on an industrial scale. This suggests that these activities may have been based on the needs of a relatively small and self-sufficient community, although some pottery, briquetage, quernstones and other materials were imported into the site

Farm evidence was present in various forms including two pottery cheese-presses (pictured) that point to dairy farming, and fragments of quernstone across the site indicating the grinding of grain