#ThrowbackThursday Birch pit 2004, 2005 – 2006

This #ThrowbackThursday we are returning to our work at Birch pit in 2004 and 2005-6.

Here we identified a few prehistoric features, all of which can be attributed to the Middle-Late Bronze Age, including three pits and probably a small ring-ditch

The major period of activity recorded on the site is that associated with a Roman settlement, which can be divided into two phases: Phase 1 (the early-mid Roman period) and Phase 2 (the late Roman period)

In Phase 1, ditches seem to have defined enclosed areas such as fields or paddocks, there is a probable well and oven, and a group of four rectangular pits were probably graves for inhumation burials. Additionally, a track or droveway (where livestock were regularly driven) was identified.

Phase 2 shows a change to the settlement layout. Late-dated ditches cut across the line of the north-south track or droveway on the east side of the site, suggesting that the landscape had possibly been partly reorganised

Later activity includes some late 16th-17th century pottery, and one or two finds which suggest possible activity in the Anglo-Saxon, and certainly in the early-medieval or medieval, periods

If you want to learn more, please check out CAT Report 383 on our reports website: cat.essex.ac.uk