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The Excavation of a Neolithic Settlement on Broome Heath, Ditchingham, Norfolk, England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

G. J. Wainwright
Affiliation:
Department of the Environment
G. W. Dimbleby
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology
A. Evans
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Biology, University of Cambridge
J. G. Evans
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University College, Cardiff

Summary

The excavation of the earthwork and part of the interior of a C-shaped enclosure in south Norfolk produced evidence of a Neolithic occupation from the mid fourth to the late third millennium B.C. The earthwork was constructed at the end of the third millennium B.C. and palaeobotanical analyses of the fossil soil beneath it produced information concerning the environment of the time. Quantities of pot-sherds and stone tools were recorded from the earthwork and from clusters of pits, and a study of grain impressions on the pottery has given some indication of the crops cultivated in the third millennium B.C. in East Anglia. The report is concluded with a discussion of a system of fossil ice-wedge casts uncovered during the excavation and their relevance to archaeological investigations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1972

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