| Abstract: |
The evaluation fieldwork comprised the excavation of 25 trenches, each measuring 50m long by 1.8m wide, in the locations shown on Figure 2. The trench numbers (39- 63) followed on from the previous phase of work. The trenches were located to test geophysical anomalies and to provide a representative sample of the remainder of the site. In September 2022, Cotswold Archaeology carried out an archaeological evaluation of Land North of Stevenage, Hertfordshire. A total of 25 trenches were excavated across the 74.30ha site, as a second phase of evaluation. The current evaluation further confirmed and augmented the results of the preceding geophysical survey and trial trenching, along with those from trenching of an immediately adjoining area in 2018, further demonstrating that an area of occupation, potentially spanning the Middle Iron Age to Late Roman period, although not necessarily continuously, is located on a ridge of higher ground in the northwest of the current site. The central focus of activity within the current site was an irregular enclosure, measuring approximately 50m by 40m in diameter, the ditch of which appears to have been recut at least once. The enclosure was abutted to the north-east and south-west by other ditches, probably forming associated enclosures for settlement or stock and field systems. A further zone of Late Iron Age Roman activity, albeit much less dense than that in the northwest, was encountered in the central-southeast part of the site, in trenches 46, 47, 48, 49 and 51. This appears to be an area largely comprised of field systems/ cultivation furrows, although pottery and environmental material from a pit in trench 51 suggests that a settlement focus may lay in the immediate vicinity, close enough for this feature to have been used for the dumping of domestic rubbish. A number of undated ditches or possible furrows were also encountered, most likely relating to the Late Saxon, Medieval and post-medieval agricultural use of the landscape, a use that has continued through to the present day. |
