SNN114805 - Land east of Halden's Parkway, Thrapston: Archaeological Evaluation Report, February 2022

Between 18th October and 10th December 2021, Oxford Archaeology East undertook trial trenching on Land East of Halden’s Parkway, Thrapston (TL 15007 93420) within an area of 48ha proposed for the development of new commercial units. The trenching followed on from a geophysical survey which had identified several areas of probable prehistoric and Roman settlement. There was evidence for three main areas of prehistoric settlement in the eastern and south-western parts of the site in the form of rectilinear enclosures associated with smaller subcircular enclosures/ring ditches, all associated with Middle Iron Age pottery. There was further evidence of dispersed Middle Iron Age activity in the northern part of the site, consisting of isolated ditches and pits. In the south-western area of the site there was also evidence for later, Romano=British, peaking in the mid 2nd to 4th centuries AD. This was characterised by a set of parallel ditches probably representing a trackway, associated with a series of small ditched enclosures. Across most of the site, especially in the eastern area, the results of the trenching corresponded very closely with the geophysical survey, although in the south-western part of the site the remains appear to be more complex than was indicated by the survey, and there is the potential for additional features, undetected by the geophysics, to be present in this area. The finds assemblage from the trenching included 736 sherds of Middle Iron Age pottery (8543g) and 108 sherds of Roman pottery (1121g), alongside small quantities of slag, ceramic building material and a small number of metal finds. Both the Iron Age and Roman features were associated with animal bone, dominated by cattle and sheep/goat (175 identified specimens) and environmental sampling produced relatively large quantities of charred plant remains including cereal grains and weed seeds.