Norfolk Archaeology 34 (2)

TL 8683. Graves of Middle Saxon date had been cut through RB and Pagan Saxon material on a site by the junction of the Little Ouse river and the town ditch. Eighty-five skeletons were recovered, detailed anthropometrical and pathological examination indicating that the principal diseases were osteoarthritis and paradontal dental abscesses. The skulls were round, perhaps indicating a Frisian origin, with asymmetry ascribed to cradle binding. The decapitated skulls of a long-headed man and woman had been carefully reburied in separate stone-lined hollows. Cooking hearths were strewn with Middle Saxon pottery. In the 11th cent church the S and E walls of the chancel and vestry were of rubble, with false-ashlar plastering and oolite quoins. Inside were traces of a wooden building. Near the altar lay a fragment of bronze censer and piece of Laconian porphyry. The church was covered by a strong revetted bank and ditch of a circular enclosure with inner perimeter track. No pottery later than about AD 1300 was found. DFR