Between 2005 and 2013, Archaeology South-East undertook four excavations on the southern part of the Isle of Thanet, Kent. The sites fall broadly into two divisions, along geographic and thematic lines: the Bradstow School and Hereson School sites in Broadstairs were located on prehistoric round barrows and their associated features; and the Manston Road and St Lawrence College sites in Ramsgate largely had evidence of prehistoric to medieval rural land use, including burial and settlement.

Detailed Description

Between 2005 and 2013, Archaeology South-East undertook four excavations on the southern part of the Isle of Thanet, Kent. The sites fall broadly into two divisions, along geographic and thematic lines: the Bradstow School and Hereson School sites in Broadstairs were located on prehistoric round barrows and their associated features; and the Manston Road and St Lawrence College sites in Ramsgate largely had evidence of prehistoric to medieval rural land use, including burial and settlement.

 

At Bradstow School the most significant discoveries were the ring-ditch of a substantial round barrow and a smaller companion barrow, which contained three adult inhumations. A further inhumation burial, uncovered at nearby Hereson School, was radiocarbon dated to the Middle/Late Bronze Age. Both of these sites also revealed evidence for later Bronze Age field systems and associated pits and postholes.

 

Middle and Late Bronze Age remains were also the focus at Manston Road with evidence for cremations, ditches and pits and a droveway. Here activity continues into the Early Iron Age with an extensive field system and evidence for the remnants of a feast, consisting of at the very least 3000 shellfish. A small Roman cremation cemetery indicates a renewed funerary function for the site.

 

At Bradstow School, a single east–west grave, robbed in antiquity, is considered to have formed part of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery lying to the north and east of the excavation area and a short-lived Middle Anglo-Saxon settlement containing several sunken-featured buildings was identified at Manston Road. At both St Lawrence College and Manston Road, medieval sunken-floored buildings were also recovered, a distinct type of structure increasingly recognised in the region.

 

For all queries in regards to this product please contact the following :-

[email protected]