A Bronze Age occupation site at Frog Hall Farm, Fingringhoe, Essex: 1975-76 excavations

Excavations in 1975-76 revealed the site of a structure defined by an oval setting of posts, lying slightly off-centre within an irregular ring-ditch which is part of a wider network of undated but probably associated cropmarks. Pottery from the post-holes, ditch and associated pits is of a flint-gritted, Late Bronze Age type. A sample of Vicia faba (horsebean) gave a radiocarbon estimation of 2760 ( 80 bp (uncalibrated), a dating which is broadly in line with the ceramic evidence. Other contemporary finds included spindle-whorls and struck flints. There was a residual Neolithic sherd among the Bronze Age material, and Roman, Saxon and medieval pottery and a Saxon bead in the ploughsoil; whether this is derived from ploughed-out features is unknown.