When mechanical ploughing was introduced on Felix Eriths farm in the 1950s, fragments of Bronze Age pottery were brought to the surface. Wherever this occurred, Erith excavated, and in 1960 he published an account of his discoveries which clearly established the importance of the Ardleigh cemetery. The pottery, with its flamboyant decoration, became the classic Deverel-Rimbury ceramic of southern East Anglia. A prolonged campaign of aerial photography revealed an extensive cropmark landscape of ring-ditches, trackways and enclosures. Further excavations in the 1960s by Erith with the Colchester Archaeological Trust revealed an Iron Age round-house, 'Belgic burials and Roman kilns. In the 1970s investigations by the Central Excavation Unit were designed to examine the nature of the cropmark complex and to place the earlier work in context. This book describes the results of both these campaigns. It provides an illustrated corpus of Ardleigh style Deverel-Rimbury ceramics, and an account of the evidence for a rural Roman pottery production centre in the hinterland of Colchester. The nature of the cropmark landscape, and the present condition and potential of the archaeology of Ardleigh are considered.

The site at Ivy Chimneys, Witham, appears to have been occupied continuously throughout the Iron Age, and remained in use until the end of the Roman period. Most traces of domestic Iron Age structures were removed by ploughing, but the surviving ditches seem to indicate more than a simple farmstead. Very large, probably defensive, ditches of late Iron Age date may imply that the settlement at Ivy Chimneys was a focus of activity at that time, and a small amount of circumstantial evidence hints at a religious use for part of the site. The nature of activity in early Roman times is unclear, although there is ample evidence for occupation of some form. The instigation of two large, long-lived, artificial depressions at this time may point towards the beginnings of Roman religious activity on the site. In the 3rd century AD a large, almost square, post-hole structure, interpreted as a Romano-Celtic temple, was constructed on the crest of the hill, and was enclosed by various ditches remnant of earlier activity. A large pond with a sophisticated water regulation system was constructed at about this time, and isolated timber columns may also have been present. A new temple appears to have been constructed in the early 4th century, represented by a continuous ditch enclosing a sub-rectangular area. An adjacent depression contained votive material and may have been used for religious ceremonies, although a pottery kiln appears to have produced only conventional material. The interpretation of a Christian phase in the mid-4th century is based on the presence of a baptismal font constructed of tile, and of a small two-celled structure, possibly a chapel. Other evidence may indirectly point to a pause in the pagan activity, but no specifically Christian portable objects were found. In the late 4th and early 5th century the site was certainly used as a pagan shrine, as attested by numerous votive offerings such as coins and pieces of jewellery. There is no evidence for the date of the final destruction of the site, but the presence of a relatively high number of Theodosian coins suggests continued activity well into the 5th century.

Three major excavations and other work in Thetford reveal settlement north of the river by AD1000, within a semi-circular defensive enclosure which probably pre-dates that south of the river, but was initially little more than a bridgehead.Occupation peaked in the 11th and 12th centuries, with a shift of people to the north bank, followed by medieval decline.The bones represent a range of domestic animals, dominated by sheep kept for wool, cattle for meat and dairy products, and then pigs. Some stray Middle Saxon finds may hint at re-use of the Iron Age fort as an exchange/market centre.

An assessment excavation was carried out on a low but distinct mound in Oxborough parish where a metal-detector survey and fieldwalking had recovered forty-one Early Saxon objects and a concentration of prehistoric flints, suggesting that the mound represented the remains of a barrow, later re-used as the focus of an Early Saxon cemetery. Although excavation revealed that the mound was natural, it was encircled by a ring-ditch, possibly in prehistoric times. Ten graves were found, some containing articulated skeletons, others jumbled bones. One skull bore the neat and healed hole of a successful trepanation. Grave-goods were few, perhaps because some had been carried away by the plough. The finds are typical of 'Anglian' burials of the 6th century, except for a silvered bronze buckle of possible Kentish origin. The results of the excavation were unexpected in that the quantity of finds from the topsoil were thought to indicate a considerable number of Early Saxon graves. In practice, most had been destroyed by ploughing, and their contents brought up to the ploughsoil. This result has implications for excavation strategy and for the interpretation of fieldwork evidence in areas of intense arable farming.

A report on the excavation of three sites which revealed evidence of change in landscape use. An extensive series was found to run along much of the North side of the Blackwater estuary. Discoveries include Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Saxon remains at Slough House, Chigborough and Howell's Farms.

^Aby S.E. West and A. McLaughlin ^DThe volume contains the results of a fieldwalking survey (with results from the prehistoric to medieval periods), information gained from standing buildings, surviving hedgerows and remaining earthworks, all integrated with the main documentary surveys (mainly manorial surveys from the late sixteenth and late seventeenth centuries), and maps depicting land use, tenements, tenant's holdings and free and copyhold land, derived from scrutiny of the main documentary sources. The result is an overall view of the landscape history of the parish, presented with the acknowledgement that much work remains to be done on the numerous original documents that exist.

The initial occupation of the site dates from the Middle Iron Age, represented by pottery and a single building. In the Late Iron Age an enclosure containing a small building was constructed. During the Conquest period a larger triple-ditched defensive enclosure with a central roundhouse was constructed to the south-east of the initial enclosure. The ditches were rapidly backfilled but the site continued in use as a farmstead until the late 3rd or early 4th century. Throughout the Romano-British period the enclosure boundaries were altered, and new buildings added. By the late 1st century the roundhouse had been replaced by an aisled domestic building, this in turn being replaced in the 3rd century by a second aisled building. In the mid 3rd century, four pottery kilns producing coarseware were constructed within the enclosure. Occupation of the site in the Early Saxon period is evidenced by five sunken-featured buildings. The archaeological features were well preserved and detailed post-excavation work has identified c.50 structures, including several previously unrecognised types of building. Large quantities of ceramic finds related to the Romano-British pottery kilns were recovered, as well as Late Iron Age and Saxon assemblages. Notable among the finds is a group of Late Iron Age spearheads associated with the backfill of the defensive enclosure.

This volume offers three papers detailing the results of projects in south-west Norfolk: firstly an extensive one-man fieldwalking survey of Barton Bendish parish; secondly, an area excavation within Barton Bendish; thirdly, a very detailed one-man fieldwalking survey of 6.5 hectares in one field. The surveys provided a diverse range and quality of surface scatter evidence, which in conjunction with historical sources, provide a sound basis for the understanding of human settlement and land use patterns in Barton Bendish feom the Iron Age to the seventeenth century. In addition, the two fieldwalking programmes, close geographically but very different in scale and intensity, make an interesting contrast in both methodology and results when presented side by side.

^Aby Beric Morley and David Gurney ^DThis book starts with a wide-ranging overview of Castle Rising, going on to review the archaeological evidence, in conjunction with comment on the archaeological explorations themselves, for the site from prehistoric times up to the post-medieval period. Three chapters are devoted to finds, including coins, building materials, pottery and zoological evidence. The development of the main building and its surrounds is fully documented, and the entire text is amply supplemented by illustrations.

^Aby J J Wymer ^DA number of sites excavated in advance of mineral extraction during the 1980s are described in this report. The Early Bronze Age round barrow with an outer bank and ditch at Bawsey, near King's Lynn, contained traces of a tree-trunk bier but no evidence of the body, plus a satellite burial and seven secondary cremations, one of which was buried beneath a complete, inverted collared urn. A mound and a possible ring-ditch in the parishes of Longham and Beeston with Bittering were found to be of periglacial origin, but the range and quantity of prehistoric material recovered indicates settlement from the Neolithic to the Iron Age in an area where little has been recorded before. A prehistoric origin seems likely for the single ring-ditch at Lyng Easthaugh, seen as a cropmark on aerial photographs, although the results of excavation were inconclusive. At South Acre, a ring-ditch identified on aerial photographs was found to be the levelled remains of a large, possibly prehistoric, round barrow. Later on, more than one hundred shallow graves were dug around the mound. These contained the remains of men, women and children, some apparently decapitated, which may be the remains of criminals executed during Saxon times.

^Aby Frances Healy ^DThe latest volume of the series on the archaeology of East Anglia attempts to document and synthesise the mass of evidence for pre-Iron Age activity between the rivers Wissey and Little Ouse. The sites are thoroughly surveyed and the finds examined, including four human skeletons which have been radio-carbon dated to the Early Bronze Age. Substantial Early or Middle Neolithic settlement is indicated, with significant Beaker and Early Bronze Age settlement after it. The artefactual and enviromental records suggest that fen edge settlements were located to maximise the resources of upland and of peat fen.

The North Shoebury Project was mounted in response to the accumulating evidence for settlement in the Southend Peninsula during virtually all periods from the prehistoric to the present day, especially widespread and possibly continuous from the Neolithic. The site itself lay on a brickearth covered gravel terrace, whose calcareous nature resulted in the preservation of bone and shell. This excavation report includes discussion of the evidence for occupation in each period, and a gazetteer of antiquities of the region.

Sparse Iron Age occupation was followed by extensive rural occupation, building up over three phases in the Roman period to a large 2nd-4th AD farmstead. In the late 4th century AD this was abandoned for no archaeologically discernible reason to lay the ground for the famous Anglo-Saxon cemetery. Ecofactual evidence for crop-processing (including flax) and artefactual evidence for many craft activities are presented. The large collection of Roman pottery is the first from an excavation in Central Norfolk to receive detailed analysis and indicates fineware flows mostly from the Nene valley. This report fills the gap between Spong Hill 6 (prehistoric occupation) and the cemetery reports, most of which are still available.

A hoard of coins of the shadowy East Anglian King Beonna triggered off a project which revealed not only late Neolithic activity but also a Viking burial and a small part of a rural settlement of the 8th to 13th centuries AD. Saturation coverage by metal detector at all stages of the work produced a large assemblage of metal objects which suggests that the 'normal' quantity and range of finds collected from conventionally excavated sites may often fall short of the true population.

Aby Phil Andrews and othersWhilst the earliest evidence for major occupation in Thetford, Norfolk, comes from the Iron Age, it was during the 10th and 11th centuries that the town developed into a major town so that by Domesday , population estimates place it amongst the six most important towns in England. In 1987 a sizeable area became availalble for excvation ahead of housing development, providing an opportunity to look for further evidence of occupation in the Early and Middle Saxon periods, as well as to investigate a part of the town which was still occupied during the late 11th and 12th centuries whan the Late Saxon settlement was in decline. This report contains details of the excavations, finds, and zoological and botanical evidence.