EDO8219 - Woodsford Quarry East, Phase M3; strip, map and sample excavation 2024

Works were undertaken in Phase M3 only. Phase M3 was located along the northern boundary and formed one of 11 slightly irregular-shaped squared plots of flat agricultural land that measured around 13,660m2. The site was excavated by machine using a wide bladed toothless ditching bucket operating under archaeological supervision. Overburden and poorly stratified deposits were removed in successive, level spits of no greater than 100mm in thickness down to the first significant archaeological horizon. Topsoil had an average depth of around 0.15m across the site and consisted of a moderately compacted mid- to dark-grey brown sandy clayey silt which, in the SSE part of the site, covered a subsoil of moderately compacted dark grey-brown sandy clayey silt around 0.24m thick. Removal of these deposits revealed several features cut in to the natural deposits which consisted of moderately compacted mid-orange with patches of mid-brown clayey silty sand. These archaeological features represented three separate phases of activity: Early Neolithic, Bronze Age and post-medieval. Based on the palaeoenvironmental evidence, it appears that burning was taking place in the vicinity of the features during context deposition; however, the insufficient quantities of carbonised cereal, carbonised and uncarbonised wild taxa and molluscan evidence precluded any further palaeoenvironmental interpretation.