Catesby Business Park, Balby Carr, Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Archaeological Excavation
Birmingham Archaeology, 2017. https://doi.org/10.5284/1045781. How to cite using this DOI
Data copyright © University of Birmingham unless otherwise stated
This work is licensed under the ADS Terms of Use and Access.
Primary contact
Historic England
1 Waterhouse Square
138-142 Holborn
London
EC1N 2ST
UK
Tel: 01793 414700
Fax: 01793 414707
Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 2867
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1045781
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
A sequence of ditched rectilinear field enclosures and ditched droveways was excavated at Catesby Business Park, Balby Carr, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, in advance of a retail development. Two phases of ditch construction were identified. The field enclosures were part of a complex of 'brickwork plan' field systems similar to those previously identified, to the south of the site, by aerial photography.
An unfinished Neolithic flint arrowhead was recovered, redeposited within the recut of one of the ditches. No pottery and very little bone was recovered from the enclosures and droveway ditches, during the excavation. Radiocarbon dating of waterlogged wood recovered from the ditch fills indicates the site dates from the mid to late Iron Age to the early Romano-British period.
The environmental evidence from the site suggests that the fields may have been used as pasture, with no evidence for the cultivation of crops on the low-lying waterlogged site itself. However, crops may have been cultivated locally on better drained drier areas of land. The surrounding landscape was probably mainly cleared of woodland with fields and copses of managed woodland.
