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#ThrowbackThursday Hanson Quarry
Jun
Happy #ThrowbackThursday everyone. Today we are looking at our excavation from Hanson Quarry in Birch, Essex 🎉
Back in 2018, prior to the commencement of mineral extraction, we investigated an area measuring 0.51 ha at this site.
The Birch area offers some archaeological potential, as aerial photographs have highlighted a number of pre-modern cropmarks. Prehistoric flints, scatters of Roman finds, and a quantity of medieval pottery have also been identified in the area. Additionally, we have been excavating at the site for the last 20 years, so anymore we can know about the site adds to the bigger picture of Birch’s archaeology 👀
During this particular excavation, an early Iron Age pit and Post-medieval NNW-SSE ditch were detected, as well as the terminus of a Late Iron Age / early Roman ditch that had been previously identified.
Finds included a small collection of prehistoric pottery, ceramic building material and baked clay🏺The pottery from the pit is likely from the 8th to 5th century BC. Additionally, one piece of worked flint (a secondary hand hammer flake), a single fragment of burnt sandstone pebble (possibly part of a pot-boiler) and two sherds of dark green post-medieval bottle glass were recovered.
Other excavations at this site (see CAT reports 807 and 1295) have also identified early Iron Age pits and pottery. These features and finds, when looked at together, might suggest that there was an Early Iron Age settlement in the vicinity.
To learn more about this site, please check out CAT Report 1345 at http://cat.essex.ac.uk/reports
Image: Pit F80 section – looking southeast
